was not what it seemed. Otherwise there was no logic in the scheme of
being, but it was a cruel fraud by the Creator upon the creature; a poor
practical joke, with the laugh all on one side. He had got rid of his
fear of it in that light, which seemed to have come to him before the
fear left him, and he wanted her to see it in the same light, and if he
died before her--But there she stopped him and protested that it would
kill her if she did not die first, with no apparent sense, even when she
told me, of her fatuity, which must have amused poor Ormond. He said what
he wanted to ask was that she would believe he had not been the least
afraid to die, and he wished her to remember this always, because she
knew how he always used to be afraid of dying. Then he really began to
talk of other things, and he led the way back to the times of their
courtship and their early married days, and their first journeys
together, and all their young-people friends, and the simple-hearted
pleasure they used to take in society, in teas and dinners, and going to
the theater. He did not like to think how that pleasure had dropped out
of their life, and he did not know why they had let it, and he was going
to have it again when they went to town.

"They had thought of staying a long time in the country, perhaps till
after Thanksgiving, for they had become attached to their place; but now
they suddenly agreed to go back to New York at once. She told me that as
soon as they agreed she felt a tremendous longing to be gone that
instant, as if she must go to escape from something, some calamity, and
she felt, looking back, that there was a prophetic quality in her
eagerness."

"Oh, she was always so," said Minver. "When a thing was to be done, she
wanted it done like lightning, no matter what the thing was."