hy, you don't
mean to say you believe in _that_ nonsense!" After which Gwen and Adrian
were free to go on wherever they left off, if they could find the place.

She found it first. "Yes--I know. 'Beldam, crone, hag, or dowdy!' Of
course. What I mean is--if it dawned on you that you were mistaken about
my identity ... I want you to be serious, because the thing is possible
... what would you do?"

"There are so many _supposes_. Suppose you hated me and I thought you a
beldam! Practice would seem to suggest fresh fields and pastures new....
But oh, the muddy, damp fields and the desolate, barren pastures.... I
know one thing I should do. I should wish myself back here in the dark,
with my feet spoiling the sofa cushion, and my head in the lap of my
dear delusion--my heavenly delusion. God avert my disillusionment! I
would not have my eyesight back at the price."

"Don't get excited! Remember we are only pretending."

"Not at all! I am being serious, because the thing is possible. Do you
know I can imagine nothing worse than waking from a dream such as I have
dreamt. It would be really _the worst_--worse than if _you_ were to die,
or change...."

"I can't see that."

"Clearly. I should not have the one great resource."

"What resource?... Oh, I see!--you are working round to suicide. I
thought we should come to that."

"Naturally, one who is not alive to the purely imaginary evil of
non-existence turns to his _felo de se_ as his sheet-anchor. Persons who
conceive that the large number of non-existent persons have a legitimate
grievance, on the score of never having been created at all, will think
otherwise. We must agree to differ."

"But how very unreasonable of you not to kill yourself!--I mean in the
case of my not--not visualising well...."

"Quite the reverse. Most reasonable. We are supposing three courses open
to Destiny. One, to kill you, lawlessly--Destiny being notoriously
lawless. Another to make you change your mind. A third to make me change
mine. The reasonableness of suicide in the first case is obvious, if
Death is not annihilation. I should catch you up. In the second, all the
Hereafters in the Universe would be no worse for me than Life in the
dark, without you, here and now. In the third case I should have no one
but myself to thank for a weak concession to Destiny, and it would be
most unfair to kill myself without your consent, freely given. And I am
by no means sure that by giving that con