"Use the word Nature and you talk sense. Only your suggestion is absolutely beside the mark. Nature puts no value on human life at all, no more than you do on the creeping things you trample to death at every step you take."
"Nature does not destroy. She only changes the form. Nothing is lost."
"Except life. That vanishes like the flame of a candle in a gust of wind."
"Vanishes! But do you know what the word means?"
"I think I do. But what is all this talk leading to? What have you got at the back of your brain? If you are going to funk the business, say so, and let me know the worst."
"I don't think I have suggested anything of the kind," Rufus replied, uneasily. "I frankly admit that I do not like the alternative, and wish that some other way of escape could be found."
"But if there is no other way?"
"Then I must meet my doom, and go into darkness disgraced and dishonoured."
"In a hundred years from now nothing will matter."
"You are not even sure of that. But, candidly, I am as ready to face death as most other men. I am not aware that I have ever proved myself a coward, but I do abhor the thought of shrinking meanly out of life by a back door in order to cheat an insurance company."