What was I to say, how evade her impulsive cross-examinations. I fell back upon evasions.
‘Why do I want to know?’ she echoed, ‘because I choose to! I hated him. He took a walk, I took a walk, and I had taken something before I took a walk. If we met, I was bound to have words with him. Basil, did I dream it, or read it long ago in some old penny dreadful of the past?’
Philippa occasionally broke into blank verse like this, but not often.
‘Dearest, it must have been a dream,’
I said, catching at this hope of soothing her.
‘No, no!’ she screamed; ‘no—no dream. Not any more, thank you! I can see myself standing now over that crushed white mass! Basil, I could never bear him in that hat, and I must have gone for him!’
I consoled Philippa as well as I could, but she kept screaming.
‘How did I kill him?’
‘Goodness only knows, Philippa,’ I replied; ‘but you had a key in your hand—a door-key.’
‘Ah, that fatal latch-key!’ she said, ‘the cause of our final quarrel. Where is it? What have you done with it?’ she shouted.