The sages say that the world, which began in water, will end in fire; thus the bodies of the breathless dead are washed and then burned, to free them of earth in foretoken of that final dissolution.
But she is breathless because her heart, brimful of fear, leaves her lungs no room to expand. The sweat on her brow, poor, sour substitute for scented water, glistens in the light from the lamp beside the old man's chair. In his stern gaze, nothing of fire now burns: neither pity, nor mercy, nor love.
He is already dead, she realizes.
And she ... ?