"Fond of her? No. I detested her. No, that's not true either. But, oh, my God, how I envied her."
There was nothing to say. He felt nervous and uncomfortable. He got up to fumble among his belongings for a cigarette. The disturbing influence of this girl whom nobody ever noticed. She was speaking again:
"Do they know who did it?"
"No. Except they seem to think that it was somebody in this house."
"Of course it was somebody in this house. It was the same person who was walking in the gallery last-night."
He sat down on the window-seat again; not wanting to force confidences, not wanting to throw out blatant and futile offers of help for-what? Yet those were the sensations, baffling and complicated, that he felt more fiercely than he could have explained them. But she must have seen it, for she said surprisingly:
"Thanks. Thanks you-don't-know-how much." A steady smile. "Most people would say I can take care of myself. I can. But it frightened me nearly as much as it frightened
.. Yes, there was somebody in the gallery last night, blundering, searching, pacing; I don't know what. It was what nearly drove poor Louise out of her wits, and why we shall probably need to have the doctor for her. Whoever it was took hold of her wrist in the dark, and then pushed her away."
"You don't suppose she imagined-?"
"There was blood on her," said Katharine Bohun.