"Such an idea never occurred to me," he said. "Do you believe that such an absolute certainty could be put into a man's mind then, without a reason, a scrap of evidence, a hint to eye, or ear?"
"I don't know. I—I want to know."
"That someone's dead?"
"That someone is not dead. How loud the sea is getting!"
"It always sounds much like that at night in winter."
"Does the winter not seem very long to you up here quite alone?"
"Oh, yes."
"And monotonous?"
"Often. But we have times of keen excitement, of violent, even of exhausting activity. I have had to rush from the pulpit up to my shoulders in the sea."
"A wreck?"