I wish, I wish death did not make people feel as if it filled all the
world--as if, when it happens, there is no life left anywhere. The child
who was alive by her side did not seem a living thing to her. It didn't
matter."

I had never said as much to any one before, but his watching eyes made
me forget my shy worldlessness.

"What do you feel about it--death?" he asked.

The low gentleness of his voice seemed something I had known always.

"I never saw it," I answered. "I have never even seen any one
dangerously ill. I--It is as if I can't believe it."

"You can't believe it? That is a wonderful thing," he said, even more
quietly than before.

"If none of us believed, how wonderful that would be! Beautiful, too."

"How that poor mother believed it!" I said, remembering her swollen,
distorted, sobbing face. "She believed nothing else; everything else was
gone."

"I wonder what would have happened if you had spoken to her about the
child?" he said, slowly, as if he were trying to imagine it.

"I'm a very shy person. I should never have courage to speak to a
stranger," I answered.