They had been constantly together for many months: he who had never cared before for companionship, had found himself turning more and more to her.
And now he was going to lose her.
He looked up once or twice to make sure that she was still by his side: she sat there so quietly. At last he spoke in his usual gruff way.
"Have you exhausted all your eloquence in your oration about learned women?" he asked.
"No, I am reserving it for a better audience," she answered, trying to be bright. But she was not bright.
"I believe you came out to the country to day to seek for cheerfulness," he said after a pause. "Have you found it?"
"I do not know," she said. "It takes me some time to recover from shocks; and Mr. Reffold's death was a sorrow to me. What do you think about death? Have you any theories about life and death, and the bridge between them? Could you say anything to help one?"
"Nothing," he answered. "Who could? And by what means?"
"Has there been no value in philosophy," she asked, "and the meditations of learnèd men?"
"Philosophy!" he sneered. "What has it done for us? It has taught us some processes of the mind's working; taught us a few wonderful things which interest the few; but the centuries have come and gone, and the only thing which the whole human race pants to know, remains unknown: our beloved ones, shall we meet them, and how?—the great secret of the universe. We ask for bread, and these philosophers give us a stone. What help could come from them: or from any one? Death is simply one of the hard facts of life."