Looking down at the ditch, she saw the half-concealed form of a man lying in the water, with his head and arms resting upon the bank. A tragedy of dry mud stamped its grey mosaic over his face. His blonde hair drooped with dirt like a trampled sunflower. The Pierrot-like hesitation of his features peeped beneath the dirt—a still and frightened ritual. With the horror of one who believes that she is beholding a dead man, Harriet knelt beside the figure and shook its head, her face turned away and her eyes tightly closed. Then she heard a mingled rustle and splash and saw that the man was rising to his feet. He stood with bent knees over the mud of the ditch, his black clothes garlanded with slime, his face twitching into life beneath its stiff mask of earth. With a squeal of fright she scrambled to her feet and ran down the road. The man in the ditch, Carl Felman, felt that something was still evading him and once more experienced the hunter’s frenzy that had tumbled him over the night. Gripped by a superhuman agility, he transcended his stiff joints and pursued her down the road. He caught her, his hands dropping upon her shoulders and whirling her around. She faced him with uplifted arms, a turbulence of fright and curiosity swiftly toying with her eyes and mouth. He lowered his hands and stood limply before her.
“Do you know what grief is?” he asked, in an almost indistinct voice.
She stared and did not answer.
“Do you know what grief is?” he asked, in a softly clear voice.
A look of loose wonder came to her face.
“Do you know what grief is?” he asked, in an almost loud voice.
A darkly smiling contemplation revised the lines of her face.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Without another word they both walked down the country road together.