He went ashen pale again and said quietly, after a long pause: "How do you know that?"
"Her letter."
"She mentioned it?"
"Yes."
"And that's what you've come to warn me about?"
"Yes. And to persuade you, if I could——"
"Why did you decide that a personal visit was necessary?"
"I shouldn't have cared to tell you all this by letter. And besides, a letter wouldn't have been nearly as quick, would it? You see I only received her letter this morning. After all, the matter's urgent enough. One can easily be too late."
He said, with eyes fixed steadily upon her: "Clare, you are too late. She drowned herself last night."
He expected she would cry or break down or do something dramatic that he could at any rate endure. But instead of that, she stared vacantly into the fast-deepening gloom of the coppice, stared infinitely, terribly, without movement or sound. Horror tore nakedly through her eyes like pain, though not a muscle of her face stirred from that fearful, statuesque immobility. Moments passed. Far over the intervening spaces came the faint chiming of the half-hour on the town-hall clock, and fainter still, but ominous-sounding, the swirl of the waves on the distant beach as the wind rose and freshened.