It seemed to her his effort was degenerating into sacrilege, into defiance of an obvious decree of the Almighty.

However, she had not ventured to speak until the young man, with a muttered ejaculation suspiciously like an imprecation, straightened his stocky figure and began to mop the sweat from his face, hands and bared arms.
When she saw that her verdict had not been heard, she repeated it more emphatically.

"The child's dead," said she, "as I told you from the set-out." She made the sign of the cross on her forehead and bosom, while her fat, dry lips moved in a "Hail, Mary." The young man did not rouse from his reverie.

He continued to gaze with a baffled expression at the tiny form, so like a whimsical caricature of humanity.

He showed that he had heard the woman's remark by saying, to himself rather than to her, "Dead?
What's that?
Merely another name for ignorance." But the current of his thought did not swerve.