She had been lying in a state of passive abandonment, her swollen wet eyes open, regardless of everything. But those quick movements caught her back to attention. She began to watch the robin, and to note how it glanced sidelong at her and appeared to meditate further approaches. She made an almost imperceptible movement, and straightway the little creature was in a projecting spray of berried hawthorn overhead. Her tear-washed mind became vaguely friendly. With an unconscious comfort it focussed down to the robin. She rolled over, sat up, and imitated his friendly "cheep." Section 7 Presently she became aware of footsteps rustling through the grass towards her. She looked over her shoulder and discovered Mr. Britling approaching by the field path. He looked white and tired and listless, even his bristling hair and moustache conveyed his depression; he was dressed in an old tweed knickerbocker suit and carrying a big atlas and some papers. He had an effect of hesitation in his approach. It was as if he wanted to talk to her and doubted her reception for him. He spoke without any preface. "Direck has told you?" he said, standing over her. She answered with a sob. "I was afraid it was so, and yet I did not believe it," said Mr. Britling. "Until now." He hesitated as if he would go on, and then he knelt down on the grass a little way from her and seated himself. There was an interval of silence. "At first it hurts like the devil," he said at last, looking away at Mertonsome spire and speaking as if he spoke to no one in particular. "And then it hurts. It goes on hurting.... And one can't say much to any one...." He said no more for a time. But the two of them comforted one another, and knew that they comforted each other. They had a common feeling of fellowship and ease. They had been stricken by the same thing; they understood how it was with each other. It was not like the attempted comfort they got from those who had not loved and dreaded.... She took up a little broken twig and dug small holes in the ground with it. "It's strange," she said, "but I'm glad I know for sure." "I can understand that," said Mr. Britling. "It stops the nightmares.... It isn't hopes I've had so much as fears.... I wouldn't admit he was dead or hurt. Because--I couldn't think it without thinking it--horrible. _Now_--" "It's final," said Mr. Britling. "It's definite," she said after a pause. "It's like thinking he's asleep--for good." But that did not satisfy her. There was more than this in her mind. "It does away with the half and half," she said. "He's dead or he is alive...." She looked up at Mr. Britling as if she measured his understanding. "You don't still doubt?" he said.