"What I can't understand," she'd say, over and over, "is her coming, when it hurts me so. Why, Janet loved me, Miss Jessop, she loved the ground I walked on, everybody said! And she knows—she must know—that I wouldn't have hurt her for the world. Why should I? She took care of me since I was six years old—sixteen years! She said to put in those powders in the box and I put them in. How could I know?"
"Of course you couldn't know," I said, "she knows that."
"Then why does she do this?" she asked me, so pitifully, just like a child. "Why does she, Miss Jessop?"
"Well, you know, Miss Elton," I said, "you wouldn't believe me if I lied to you, now, would you? And so I must tell you that I don't think she does do it: none of us do. It's just your idea. If Janet's there, why don't I see her? You're overstrained and excited and you feel that she might not have died——"
"Ah, but I didn't feel that the night she came!" she broke out, "truly I didn't. Dr. Stanchon and all of them said I was very brave and sensible. He talked to me and made me see: if Janet had been sleeping with one of the maids and waked her up and told her not to turn on the light because it hurt her head, but just to give her the powders in the box, that maid would have done it. I can see that."
"Of course," said I.
"I didn't blame myself—really," she went on, and suddenly she looked straight to the foot of the bed.
"Janet," she said, "the doctor said never to speak to you, and I never will again, but I must, this once. Janet, do you blame me? Are you really there? Why do you come this way? You're killing me, you know. I can't sleep. You shouldn't have taken that strong medicine, and the doctor told you not to, you know, yourself. Won't you go, Janet? Not to please Nannie?"
Really, it would have melted a stone to hear her.
She was still a moment and then she began to cry and whimper, and I knew that it had made no difference.