"But what did you do? She was devoted to you."
She sprang up and wailed out with bitter vehemence, "Oh, I don't know! I don't know! If I only knew, I could do something. But what can I do, now? She's gone. She was my right hand, my eyes, my ears, my memory—but it's not that! It's that I could have been cruel enough to her to drive her away. Where is she? Where could she have gone, do you think? I've waited and waited to hear from her, or for her to come back—two whole days! I didn't go to bed at all last night. I didn't dare, lest she should come while I was asleep."
"You expect her to return, then?"
She was walking up and down the room, her hands clasped behind her back tightly. I could see that she was on the verge of hysteria. She turned to me again, and said:
"Oh, Leah would never abandon me, never! She's too true for that. But she's afraid to come back!"
I went up to her and led her gently to the seat.
"Now," I said, "tell me exactly what has happened."
She broke out again wildly, her face twitching with excitement. "I don't know! Don't you see I don't know? That's the horror of it! I may have killed her, for all I know!"
"Ah! Do you mean," I began, afraid to say it, "that you've forgotten?"
She stared at me. "Forgotten? Well, you may call it that. Yes, I've forgotten." She put her face into the pillow and began to sob convulsively. After this nervous crisis had spent itself she sat up, wiped her eyes and said with a faint, spectral smile: