"Clare, dear, do get up. Come on to the sofa. You mustn't kneel there. You'll strain yourself. I always get tired kneeling in church. It makes one's heart ache."
Clare would not move.
"Don't you think my heart aches?" she said. "Don't you think it aches all day? You're young—you're cold—you can sit there reading, reading—with a ghost at your shoulder——"
An undecipherable expression flashed across Alwynne's face. It came but to go—and Clare, absorbed in her own passion, saw nothing.
"It's Louise!" she cried, between sincerity and histrionics. "Calling to some one. Calling from her grave. They call it an accident, like fools. Oh, can't you hear? She died because she was forced. She's complaining—plaining—plaining——I tell you it's nothing to do with me. It wasn't my fault!"
She flung her arms about Alwynne's waist and clutched her convulsively. She was sincere enough at last.
"Alwynne! Alwynne! Say it was not my fault."
Alwynne sank to her knees beside her and held her close. They clung to each other like scared children. But Clare's abandonment awoke all Alwynne's protective instincts. She crushed down whatever emotions had hollowed her eyes and whitened her cheeks in the last long weeks, and addressed herself to quieting Clare. Clare, stepped off her pedestal, unpoised, clinging helplessly, was a new experience. In the face of it she felt herself childish, inadequate. But Clare was in trouble and needed her. The very marvel of it steadied. All her love for Clare rose within her, overflowed her, like a warm tide.
By sheer strength she pulled Clare into a chair and dropped on to the floor beside her, face upturned, talking fast and eagerly.
"You're not to talk like that. Of course it's not your fault. If anything could be your fault. Clare, darling, don't look like that. You must lean back and rest. You're just tired, you know. We've talked of it so often. You know it was an accident. Why can't you believe it, if every one else does?"