"Please don't let us torture each other, Winnie. You are going away to get well."
"Suppose I should die, Laurence."
"But you won't die." Again he drew her uncomfortably to him. His head throbbed. He tried to give her what she wanted.
Her shuddering lips moved over his face and he drooped helplessly under them like a beast in the rain. He tried to love her.
She hated him so that she could not bear to have him go away from her. Death. She tried to keep that word in her. It was a child she had conceived to which she refused birth. She wanted to carry death dead in her.
"If anything terrible happens—if I have to be operated on!" Her words stumbled.
"But nothing will happen. You're nervous, Winnie. You're all nervous and sick. This stay in the country will make you over."
"And you'll be glad to see me well again?" She leaned back from him, searching his set, kind face with her tearful eyes.
"Of course, my dear girl. Of course."
"Winnie!" Alice called.