She had said this almost unconsciously, for her mind had gone a long way ahead. She was thinking that if George drove recklessly through a thunderstorm, and the car skidded, and he ... died ... passed away ... on the way to the hospital at Dark Harbour (because the most appalling things do happen sometimes: why, once a flake of burning tobacco blew from George’s pipe into his eye, as he was turning a corner, and the car almost went into the ditch) ... what on earth would she do? Wire to New York for mourning, and would it be proper to keep Mr. Martin in the house after the funeral? The little churchyard on the dunes would be such a picturesque place to bury a husband: sandy soil, too (it seems so much cleaner, somehow) and harebells among the stones. What was that kind of lettering George was always talking about? Yes, Caslon: he would like that-- GEORGE GRANVILLE IN THE 39TH YEAR OF HIS AGE Certainly it would never do to have him there after the interment (Mr. Martin, that is). It would have to be at two o’clock so he could get the 3:18 train. Two o’clock makes it rather early, it would interrupt George’s nap after lunch.... But Mr. Martin was sitting up looking at her with interest. “Really?” he was asking. “You feel that way too?” She had forgotten what she had said; and she couldn’t very well say “_What_ way?” She must have said something rather good, because he was gazing at her with lively expectancy. His inquisitive eyes, eager brown face, were utterly charming. How fascinating human beings are, she thought: their nice fabricky clothes, their queerly carved faces. She wanted to stretch beside him on the shiny needles, let the sun bake and cook away this horrible curdling sickness that shook inside her; purify all her idiocy in the warm clear pleasure of exchanging ideas. Why even animals can communicate their sensations more cordially than people. Must this fardel of identity always be borne alone? “Yes,” she said, with her perfected smile. She wanted to put her hand on his shoulder, to know if he was actual. When the whole fire and anger of a woman’s life reaches out for some imagined fulfillment, she finds no luxury of phrase to say her pang. She is a movement of nature, a wind that stirs the grass, a moth blundering in the rain. I shall tell him in a minute, I shall tell him, God help me not to tell him. Is this being tempted beyond my strength? But this isn’t temptation, this is just Truth. This was God Himself. Weren’t we told to love God? Perhaps George would say that biology was just making fun of her. You’re not supposed to love more than one person at a time--not in the same way, at least.... “Even Picnics?” “Don’t speak of the Picnic,” she said. “I hate to think of it. Damn the Picnic.” He looked startled. “George made up a limerick once,” she said. “It began like this: _I never believed in monogamy, My husband has just made a dog o’ me._ But he couldn’t find another rhyme.” “What’s monogamy?”