"Well?" he urged her forward.
"I went up to the room where she had changed, to see that the children had gone——"
"She fell from that room?"
"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.
"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."
She was silent.
"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.