Elinor was frightened, but she had not lost her head. She was thinking rapidly.
“She had a visitor this afternoon, a young man. He must have told her something about last night. She came up and told me she was going.”
“You know he told her something, don't you?”
“Yes.” Elinor had cowered against the wall. “Jim, don't look like that. You frighten me. I couldn't keep her here. I—”
“What did he tell her?”
“He accused you.”
He was eyeing her coldly, calculatingly. All his suspicions of the past weeks suddenly crystallized. “And you let her go, after that,” he said slowly. “You were glad to have her go. You didn't deny what she said. You let her run back home, with what she had guessed and what you told her to-day. You—”
He struck her then. The blow was as remorseless as his voice, as deliberate. She fell down the staircase headlong, and lay there, not moving.
The elderly maid came running from the kitchen, and found him half-way down the stairs, his eyes still calculating, but his body shaking.
“She fell,” he said, still staring down. But the servant faced him, her eyes full of hate.