"And you think you are going to die soon?" Her voice was hoarse and unnatural.
"Yes, I feel quite sure of it."
"And yet you are here talking with me about it calmly."
"What else is there to do?"
"It cannot be! It cannot be!" she cried passionately. "You must not die."
"If I could believe what John Searle believes, I should not care," was my answer. "If I could believe that this life is only a fragment of life—that death is only the door by which we enter another life, the fulfilment of this life; if I could believe that at the back of everything is an Omnipotent, All-Wise, Ever-Loving, Beneficent God, I should not mind death, I think I should laugh at it. Then what we call death would not be death at all. That is my difficulty."
"And you want to live?"
"Yes, I have an intense longing to live. I have a passion for life. But what can I do? When the poison of death is in one's system and science knows no means whereby that poison can be destroyed, all is hopeless."
"And the doctor gave you no hope?"
"No, he said nothing could save me. Yesterday I felt as though I could not die, as though life was strong within me. To-day life seems only a matter of hours."