`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.