“But very possible.”

She became suddenly aware of the intensity of his expression. The sinews of his close-shut hands showed white, and in his eyes burnt a strange fire. An odd fear seized her, and to cover her nervousness she quoted at random.

“Don’t you remember the Browning lines:

“ ‘Some with lives that came to nothing,

Some with deeds as well undone,

Death came tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.’ ”

He seized on the purport of a single line, and said:

“Isn’t the alternative better, perhaps, than this?”

“Death?” she queried.

“ ‘Some with deeds as well undone.’ ”