His first thought was: Well, here I am again. I’ve not been wiped out. His next, that he hadn’t died at all. He had gone to sleep and was now dreaming. He was not in the least agitated, nor even surprised.
He found himself alone in an immense grey space, in which there was no distinguishable object but himself. He was aware of his body as occupying a portion of this space. For he had a body; a curious, tenuous, whitish body. The odd thing was that this empty space had a sort of solidity under him. He was lying on it, stretched out on it, adrift. It supported him with the buoyancy of deep water. And yet his body was part of it, netted in.
He was now aware of two figures approaching. They came and stood, like figures treading water, one on each side of him, and he saw that they were Elizabeth and Paul Jeffreson.
Then he concluded that he was really dead; dead like Elizabeth and Jeffreson, and (since they were there) that he was in hell.
Elizabeth was speaking, and her voice sounded sweet and very kind. All the same he knew he was in hell.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s queer at first, but you’ll get used to it. You don’t mind our coming to meet you?”
Mr. Spalding said he’d no business to mind, no right to reproach her, since they were all in the same boat. They had, all three, deserved their punishment.
“Punishment?” (Jeffreson spoke). “Why, where does he think he is?”
“I’m in hell, aren’t I? If—”
“If we’re here. Is that it?”