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.

“I’m content now in my mind—­in a way.  He wasn’t anyhow there—­unless he was dead.  But if I saw Teddy coming over the hedge there to me—­It would be just natural....  No, don’t stare at me.  I know really he is dead.  And it is a comfort.  It is peace....  All the thoughts of him being crushed dreadfully or being mutilated or lying and screaming—­or things like that—­they’ve gone.  He’s out of his spoilt body.  He’s my unbroken Teddy again....  Out of sight somewhere....  Unbroken....  Sleeping.”