"And when I got the door open--an empty room. Something made me look out of the window. She was down below--right under me--on the steps."
"But afterwards?" he urged her. "You went up again?"
"I had to. I was afraid already--recollecting little things. I looked about, in case she'd left a message. And on the window-ledge--there were great scratches. Then I knew."
She was forgetting him, staring into space, peopled as it was with her memories.
"Oh," she said dully, "there was a nail in her shoe. She had tried to hammer it in at the morning school. It had made scratches all over the rostrum. I was rather cross about it."
"But I don't see," he began, and stopped, realising suddenly her meaning.
"You mean--she must have stood on the ledge--to make those marks?"
"Yes," said Alwynne. Then, fiercely, "Well?"
"Yes, that's conclusive," he admitted. He looked at her pityingly. "You poor child! And you never told?"
"I got a paint-box," she said defiantly, "and painted them brown--like the paintwork. It would have broken up Clare to know--and all the questions and comments. What would you have done?"
He ignored the challenge, answered only the misery in the tone.
"It can't have been easy for you--that week," he said gently.
"Easy?" She began to laugh harshly. "And yet I don't know," she reflected. "I don't think I felt anything much at the time. It was like being in a play. Almost interesting. Entirely unreal. At the inquest--I lied as easily as saying grace. I wasn't a bit worried. What did worry me was a bit of sticking-plaster on the coroner's chin. One end was uncurled, and I was longing for him to stick it down again. It seemed more important than anything else that he should stick it down. It would have been a real relief to me. I'm not trying to be funny."
"And when it was over--I was quite cheerful. And at the funeral--I know they thought I was callous. But I didn't feel sad. Only cold--icy cold--in my hands and my feet and my heart. And I felt desperately irritated with them all for crying. People look appalling when they cry." She paused. "So they banked up Louise with wreaths and we left her." She paused again.
"I went home at the end of that week. Elsbeth sent me to bed early. I was log-tired all of a sudden. Oh, I was tired! I had hardly slept at all since she died. I'd stayed at Clare's, you know. She's a bad sleeper, too, and it always infects me--and we used to sit up till daylight, forgetting the time, talking. We've always heaps to talk about. Clare's a night-bird. She's always most brilliant about midnight." She smiled reminiscently. "We picnic, you know, in our dressing-gowns. She has a great white bearskin on the hearth. Her fires are piled up, and never go out all night. And I brew coffee--and we talk. It's jolly. I wish you knew Clare. She's an absorbing person."