For more than a month, her endgame was a mystery. When would she drop out? Under what circumstances? Why not sooner rather than later?

A day after losing the Democratic nominating fight but not formally bowing out, Sen. Hillary Clinton said she will suspend her campaign by the end of this week, and pledged to help Sen. Barack Obama capture the White House.

Clinton plans to thank supporters at a Washington D.C. event Saturday, but she got a head start in an e-mail the campaign sent out early Thursday, announcing the former First Lady’s planned withdrawal from the race.

By suspending instead of dropping out altogether, Clinton technically remains a candidate, entitled to keep pledged delegates and district-level delegates. Mitt Romney also exited this way on the GOP side.

In a campaign of near-deaths and premature obituaries, Clinton battled all the way into early June - though her hopes were essentially dashed May 6.

Boosted by a convincing, April 22 win in Pennsylvania, Hillary’s campaign hoped for a close race in North Carolina and a landslide win in Indiana. But the reverse happened, and Obama virtually wrapped it up.

Obama was still well short of the delegate plateau, but from May 6 on, there was a sense of resignation within the Hillary Clinton campaign.

She would carry on, but the outcome was inevitable. “She can accept losing,” an adviser told the Washington Post. “She could not accept quitting.”

With the battle for pledged delegates all but lost after May 6, Clinton pinned her dimming hopes on the Florida and Michigan delegations being reinstated, and perhaps a saving wave of superdelegate support.

Yet Democrats nationwide have coalesced around Obama in the past month, and this week, when he officially won the nomination by securing 2,118, those who were still on the fence have moved swiftly to his camp.

In fact, on Thursday and Friday, even the top Democrats from Clinton’s home state of New York plan to endorse the Illinois senator.

After the final South Dakota and Montana primaries Tuesday, Obama crossed the finish line of 2,118, but Clinton did not concede.

Instead, she waited, continuing to test the waters and determine the best way to proceed. In the end, all her avenues had been exhausted, the final chapter of a formidable, but failed campaign written.

All that remains to be seen is whether she’ll be given a curtain call as V.P.