"Chris, speak to me!"
She turned her face into his breast, and with relief he heard her begin to breathe again. But she did not speak. She only lay there dumbly in crushed stillness.
For a while he waited, but at last, as she made no movement, he spoke again. "Chris, would you like me to leave you?"
That reached her. She turned her face quickly upwards. "No, Trevor."
The wide, strained look was still in her eyes, but they did not flinch from his.
"I knew he was dead," she said, speaking very quickly, "when I woke up just now. I thought—I thought—" She broke off, as if she could not continue. "And afterwards—directly I saw you by my side—I knew it was true. Trevor"—the piteous note sounded again in her voice—"why are you not afraid of death?"
"Because I don't believe in it," he said.
"But yet—but yet—" Her words faltered away into silence.
He laid his hand again upon her head. "My dear, death is purely physical. You know it in your heart as well as I do. Death is the passing of the spirit—no more than that."
She uttered a deep sigh. "Oh, Trevor, I wish I wasn't so wicked."