She is silent. Then says slowly: “Will you swear it?”

“Yes.”

“By everything that is sacred to you?”

Good God, what is there that is sacred to me?⁠—such things change pretty quickly with us.

“Yes, he died at once.”

“Are you willing never to come back yourself, if it isn’t true?”

“May I never come back if he wasn’t killed instantaneously.”

I would swear to anything. But she seems to believe me. She moans and weeps steadily. I have to tell how it happened, so I invent a story and I almost believe it myself.