Barbara’s nominal boyfriend, Ted, read about her death in the newspapers and had a very unpleasant thought. He was shocked, unbelieving, sad, deprived of something in his life, and he was genuinely sorry for Barbara. Since he had never had her, however (in fact, he had only had one girl so far and paid for that), she exited from his life as the forever unattainable girl. Her worth was heightened, and he wondered what it would have been like to do that to her. Simply by having the thought, he changed his own life. He knew himself, and that is a sort of death in itself.
