"When did you see her last?" he asked.
"I saw her last driving on the sea front at San Remo. If you could call it seeing her. She was all huddled up in furs and rugs and things. Just a sharp white slip of a face and two eyes gazing at nothing out of the carriage window. She looked as if something had scared her."
And it was of her that he had been afraid!
"Do you know," he said presently, "what she died of?"
"No. It was supposed that, some time or other, she must have had some great shock."
Caldecott shifted his position.
"The doctors said there was no reason why she should have died. She could have lived well enough if she had wanted to. The terrible thing was that she didn't want. If you ask me what she died of I should say she was either scared to death or starved."
"Surely," he said, "surely she had enough?"
"Oh, she had food enough to eat, and clothes enough to cover her, and fire enough to warm her. But she starved."
"What do you suppose," said Julia, "the poor girl wanted?"