“This is a fraud of which I have never even dreamed,” he said.  “Tears and no sorrow!  Here am I crying! growing maudlin! whilst I am glad that she is gone and I free.  I have the mechanism of grief in me somewhere; it begins to turn at sight of her though I have no sorrow; just as she used to start the mechanism of passion when I had no love.  And that made no difference to her; whilst the wheels went round she was satisfied.  I hope the mechanism of grief will flag and stop in its spinning as soon as the other used to.  It is stopping already, I think.  What a mockery!  Whilst it lasts I suppose I am really sorry.  And yet, would I restore her to life if I could?  Perhaps so; I am therefore thankful that I cannot.”  He folded his arms on the rail and gravely addressed the dead figure, which still affected him so strongly that he had to exert his will to face it with composure.  “If you really loved me, it is well for you that you are dead—­idiot that I was to believe that the passion you could inspire, you poor child, would last.  We are both lucky; I have escaped from you, and you have escaped from yourself.”

Presently he breathed more freely and looked round the room to help himself into a matter-of-fact vein by a little unembarrassed action, and the commonplace aspect of the bedroom furniture.  He went to the pillow, and bent over it, examining the face closely.

“Poor child!” he said again, tenderly.  Then, with sudden reaction, apostrophizing himself instead of his wife, “Poor ass!  Poor idiot!  Poor jackanapes!  Here is the body of a woman who was nearly as old as myself, and perhaps wiser, and here am I moralizing over it as if I were God Almighty and she a baby!  The more you remind a man of what he is, the more conceited he becomes.  Monstrous!  I shall feel immortal presently.”

He touched the cheek with a faint attempt at roughness, to feel how cold it was.  Then he touched his own, and remarked: 

“This is what I am hastening toward at the express speed of sixty minutes an hour!” He stood looking down at the face and tasting this sombre reflection for a long time.  When it palled on him, he roused himself, and exclaimed more cheerfully: 

“After all, she is not dead.  Every word she uttered—­every idea she formed and expressed, was an inexhaustible and indestructible impulse.”  He paused, considered a little further, and relapsed into gloom, adding, “and the dozen others whose names will be with hers in the ‘Times’ to-morrow?  Their words too are still in the air, to endure there to all eternity.  Hm!  How the air must be crammed with nonsense!  Two sounds sometimes produce a silence; perhaps ideas neutralize one another in some analogous way.  No, my dear; you are dead and gone and done with, and I shall be dead and gone and done with too soon to leave me leisure to fool myself with hopes of immortality.  Poor Hetty!  Well, good-by, my darling.  Let us pretend for a moment that you can hear that; I know it will please you.”