She raised her head. “Weren’t you at the inquest?” she asked, dabbing at her swollen eyes with the back of a hand like the schoolgirl she had named herself.
“Not exactly,” said Anthony, and wondered how many more times he would have to answer this question.
“Why, then you—you don’t know that—that Archie s-said he went out for a walk during the time when the—the Thing must have been done. And the beasts d-don’t believe him because nobody at all saw him while he was out!”
“I still don’t——”
She broke in on his sentence with a flood of speech, springing to her feet.
“Oh, you fool, you fool!” she cried. “I ought to have seen him! I, I, I! I was to have met him down there on the bank, this side, by the bridge. We’d arranged a walk! And then because I thought I was some one; because I thought he had been rude to me that afternoon, I must needs think I would punish him! And I didn’t go! I didn’t meet him! I stayed at home! Christ help me, I stayed at home!”
Anthony was shocked into sympathy. “My dear chap,” he said. “My dear chap!” He went to her and dropped a hand on her shoulder. “You poor child!”
Wearily, she sank against him. The reddish-golden head fell on his shoulder. But she made no sound. She was past tears.
For a moment they stood thus, while he patted the slim shoulder. Then she drew herself upright and away from him.
“You must sit down,” he said.