The following morning, Selden decides to visit Lily. He has found the one word that he wishes to say to her. He arrives at her boardinghouse to find Gerty, who tells him that Lily is dead. Cognizant of Selden’s true feelings for Lily, Gerty leaves him alone with Lily’s body. He finds the check written to Trenor, which confuses him. Selden also finds the letter he had written her expressing his desire to see her two years earlier. He recognizes his subsequent inability to maintain his love for Lily as an act of cowardice. He knows that he once loved Lily and that she once loved him, but that her background and his negative judgments of her lifestyle had conspired to keep them apart. He kneels by her bed in penance and to feel one last loving moment between them.
