He said: "Yes; find my little grandchildren and tell me what they are doing." He passed a transparent hand unsteadily across his dim eyes: "They are not living," he added. "They were lost at sea."
She said: "Nothing dies. Nothing is really lost."
"Why do you think so, child?"
"Because the whole world is gay and animated and lovely with what we call 'the dead.' And, by the dead I mean all things great and small that have ever lived."
He sat listening with all the concentration and rapt attention of a child intent upon a fairy tale. She said, as though speaking to herself: "You should see and hear the myriads of birds that have 'died'! The sky is full of their voices and their wings.... Everywhere—everywhere the lesser children live,—those long dead of inhumanity or of that crude and temporary code which we call the law of nature. All has been made up to them—whatever of cruelty and pain they suffered—whatever rigour of the 'natural' law in that chain of destruction which we call the struggle for existence.... For there is only one real law, and it rules all of space that we can see, and more of it than we can even imagine.... It is the law of absolute justice."
The old man nodded: "Do you believe that?"
She looked up at him dreamily: "Yes; I believe it. Or I should not have said it."
"Has anybody ever told you this?"
"No.... I never even thought about it until this moment while listening to my own words."... She lifted one hand and rested it against her forehead: "I cannot seem to think of your grandchildren's names.... Don't tell me."