After a minute or so, getting no reply, he added more querulously—
"I reckon you might answer, 'Lizabeth. Do 'ee think I've got to die?"
'Lizabeth, who stood by the uncurtained window, staring into the blackness without, barely turned her head to answer—
"Certain."
"Doctor said so, did he?"
'Lizabeth, still with her back towards him, nodded. For a minute or two there was silence.
"I don't feel like dyin'; but doctor ought to know. Seemed to me 'twas harder, an'—an' more important. This sort o' dyin' don't seem o' much account."
"No?"
"That's it. I reckon, though, 'twould be other if I had a family round the bed. But there ain't none o' the boys left to stand by me now. It's hard."
"What's hard?"