“Sybil’s murdered—dead—shot.” Each word was projected in a screaming gasp.
Bassett shouted at her, “Where?”
And she waved an arm toward the channel.
“There—from the Point. She’s gone—she’s dead! She went over into the water. On the top of the cliff. She’s murdered—dead—murdered!”
As if she were dead, too, and of no more consequence, they fled past her—a line of people streaming out into the serene evening that held a hideous catastrophe. Only Anne stayed, her face as if overlaid by a coating of white paint. She went to Flora and seized her by the arm.
“Who was it?” she whispered. “Who did it?”
The woman looked at her at first as if not knowing who she was. Then jerking her arm free, clasped her hands against the sides of her head and went across the room staring upward and crying out:
“I don’t know. I didn’t see—— It’s God’s truth, I don’t know.”
Anne ran out after the others.