motionless on the grass that they appeared to sink into it and weigh it
down like palpable substances.

"I feel," said Putnam suddenly, "as though I should live for ever."

"Did you ever doubt it?" she asked.

"Oh, I mean here--_ici bas_--in the body. I can't conceive of death or
of a spiritual existence on such a day as this."

"There is nothing here to live for," she said wearily. Presently she
added, "This hot glare makes me sick: I wish those men would stop
hammering on the bridge. I wish I could die and get away into the dark."

Putnam paused before replying. He had never heard her speak so
impatiently. Was the revulsion coming? Was she growing tired of sorrow?
After a minute he said, "Ah, you don't know what it is to be a
convalescent and lie for months in a darkened room listening to the
hand-organ man and the scissors-grinder, and the fellow that goes
through the street hallooing 'Cash paid for rags!' It's like having a
new body to get the use of your limbs again and come out into the
sunshine."

"Were you very sick?" she inquired with some show of interest.

He remembered with some mortification that he had told her so once or
twice before. She had apparently forgotten it. "Yes, I nearly died."

"Were you glad to recover?"

"Well, I can't remember that I had any feelings in particular when I
first struck the up-track. It was hard work fighting for life, and I
don't think I cared much one way or the other. But when I got well
enough to sit up it began to grow interesting. I used to sit at the
window in a very infantile frame of mind and watch everything that went
by. It wasn't a very rowdy life, as the prisoner in solitary confinement
said to Dickens. We live in a back street, where there's not much
passing. The advent of the baker's cart used to be the chief excitement.
It was painted red and yellow, and he baked very nice leaf-cookies. My
mother would hang a napkin in the door-knocker when she wanted him to
stop; and as I couldn't see the knocker from my window, I used to make
bets with Dummy as to whether the wagon would stop or not."

"Your mother is living, then?"

"Yes: my father died when I was a boy."

She asked no further questions, but a few minutes after rose and said,
"I think I will go now. Good-evening."

He had never before outstayed her. He looked at his watch and found that
it was only half-past four.

"I hope," he began anxiously, "that you are not feeling sick: you spoke
just