'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,' murmured Ursula.
'No! I'd rather Diana Crich were dead. Her living somehow, was all
wrong. As for the young man, poor devil--he'll find his way out quickly
instead of slowly. Death is all right--nothing better.'
'Yet you don't want to die,' she challenged him.
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