ALICE. Riddles! Riddles! But do you notice that there is peace in the house now? The wonderful peace of death. Wonderful as the solemn anxiety that surrounds the coming of a child into the world. I hear the silence -- and on the floor I see the traces of the easy-chair that carried him away -- And I feel that now my life is ended, and I am starting on the road to dissolution! Do you know, it's queer, but those simple words of the Lieutenant -- and his is a simple mind -- they pursue me, but now they have become serious. My husband, my youth's beloved -- yes, perhaps you laugh! -- he was a good and noble man -- nevertheless!