"N-o—no, of course not."
Roger moved to the back door and closed it. The fog was so stealthy, so uncannily conscious, an inimical spirit released to stifle himself and Anne in its silence. As he turned again Anne struck a match to light the gas-taper but he stopped her. He could conceal his disappointment better in the dark.
"Don't light the light, unless you want it. I like it—dark—after the last weeks. It was so noisy and glaring and dirty most of the time."
Anne put the taper back on its hook. "I like it this way, too," she said in a detached tone that drew Roger's attention sharply. It was the voice of some one, not at all concerned with present reality, scarcely conscious of its surroundings. It was as lonely and detached as a wisp of the fog. He went nearer to her.
"How is your father? Better?"
"Yes. He's better on the whole, in some ways at least. But——" Anne shivered. "It's terrible, watching some one die; that's what it really is. He may live for years like this, good days and then a bad day—but—all the time—he is really dying—dying every day—a little bit—dropping apart—until—he drops away altogether over the Edge."
She was turned to him, but her eyes strained past to the chasm beyond the Edge, and her hands were clenched as if she would hold the old man from it.
Roger put his arm about her, but Anne stood stiffly within his hold, seeing only the terrible, slow progress of her father to the grave. But to Roger, it was not terrible that one old man, criminal in his narrowness and stupidity, was slowly dying in the same dull way he had lived. There was a magnificent poetic justice in it—the little gray mole, creeping blindly through life, now creeping blindly, selfishly toward death. Men in their prime poured their strength into the fiery pits of the steel mills; the slums of great cities battened on the babyhood of thousands; here, in the comfort of his home, one uninteresting, unimportant human unit was dying. He had contributed nothing to life. He would leave no unfillable space behind him. Even his own wife would not sincerely mourn him, nor would the faintest ray of beauty be dimmed in any life by his going. Impatience touched Roger, although he still held Anne and quietly stroked her hair.
"You mustn't think about it like that. Your father isn't old, but he isn't young, either. He has had the average length of life. We all have to die."
"Why?" Anne whispered fiercely.