Pross could not hear him. “So I’ll nod my head,” thought Mr.

Cruncher, amazed, “at all events she’ll see that.” And she did.

“Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross again,

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presently.

Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head.

“I don’t hear it.”

“Gone deaf in a hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his

mind much disturbed; “wot’s come to her?”

“I feel,” said Miss Pross, “as if there had been a flash and a

crash, and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this

life.”

“Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition!” said Mr. Cruncher,

more and more disturbed. “Wot can she have been a takin’, to

keep her courage up? Hark! There’s the roll of them dreadful

carts! You can hear that, Miss?”

“I can hear,” said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her,

“nothing. O, my good man, there was first a great crash, and then

a great stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed and

unchangeable, never to be broken any more as long as my life

lasts.”

“If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh

their journey’s end,” said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his

shoulder, “it’s my opinion that indeed she never will hear anything

else in this world.”

And indeed she never did.

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Chapter XLV

THE FOOT