"Only the failing. And then the play. I told you. She was awfully strange afterwards. That's where I blame myself. I ought to have seen that she was overwrought. But she drank the tea, and cheered up so when I told her Clare was pleased with her acting----"
"I'm sure she must have been--it was brilliant, you know."
"Oh, not actually--but I could tell. And it cheered the child up. I was quite easy about her--and then ten minutes later----" She shuddered.
"Then it might have been an accident," he suggested soothingly.
"It wasn't," she said, with despairing conviction.
"My dear girl! Either you're indulging in morbid imaginings--or you've something to go on?"
She shook her head with a frightened look at him.
"Then why," he said quietly, meeting her eyes, "were you frightened at the inquest?"
"I wasn't--I mean--I was nervous, of course."
"You were frightened of what you might slip into saying. You told me so ten minutes ago."
"Oh, if you're trying to trap me?" she flashed out wrathfully.
He rejoiced at the tone. It was the impetuous Alwynne of his daily intercourse again. The mere relief of discussion was, as he had guessed, having a tonic effect on her nerves.
"Don't tell me anything more, if you'd rather not."
"I didn't mean to be angry," she faltered. "Only I've guarded myself so from telling. You see, I lied at the inquest. It was perjury, I suppose." There was a little touch of importance in her tone. "But I'll tell you."
She hesitated, her older self once more supervening.
"Afterwards--when the doctor had come, and they took Louise away--after that ghastly afternoon was over----" She whitened. "It was ghastly, you know--so many people--crowding and gaping--I dream of all those crowded faces----"
"I went up to the room where she had changed, to see that the children had gone----"
"She must have. After she had changed. She'd locked the door--to change. I broke it open. I thought she had fainted--a baby told me something about Louise falling--lisping so, I couldn't make out what she meant--and I'd run up to see. It turned out afterwards that little Joan had been in a lower room, and had seen her body as it fell past the window."
"How beastly!" he said, with an involuntary shudder.