"Pete," said Osmond suddenly, "is this death coming?"
"Is what death?"
"It's too queer for life."
"To sit here talking like this?"
"No, not that exactly, but the sense of things to come. It seems as if life wasn't going to be the same again, and nothing was quite big enough to come after things as they've been lately,—but death, and that's only big enough because it's unknown."
"What will come?" asked Peter. He felt at once like a little boy, half afraid, and afraid of his fear, yet with his brother to uphold him.
"We won't go to bed to-night, will we? We'll sit here, even if we hold our tongues. I can't go to bed."
They did sit there for an hour or so. Peter spoke.
"What are you thinking, old man?"
"Of Rose."