“ Do you think they are dead?” she cried in a high voice, to make herself heard.
“ Yes,” he replied.
“ Isn’t it horrible!”
He paid no heed. They walked up the hill, further and further away from the noise.
“ Do you mind very much?” she asked him.
“ I don’t mind about the dead,” he said, “once they are dead. The worst of it is, they cling on to the living, and won’t let go.”
She pondered for a time.
“ Yes,” she said. “The fact of death doesn’t really seem to matter much, does it?”
“ No,” he said. “What does it matter if Diana Crich is alive or dead?”
“ Doesn’t it?” she said, shocked.
“ No, why should it? Better she were dead—she’ll be much more real. She’ll be positive in death. In life she was a fretting, negated thing.”
“ You are rather horrible,” mu
