'None,' I said.
'Did I not tell you that the spirit-world had called her back? What I saw has vanished, as I expected. How could you suppose that a material body could ever be so beautiful?'
As I particularly wished that the model should, for a time at least, be removed from all her present surroundings, I thought it well to let Wilderspin retain his wild theory as to her disappearance.
I had already arranged to go on the following day to Hurstcote Manor, where several unfinished pictures were waiting for me, and I decided to take the model with me.
Before, however, I started for the country with her, I had the curiosity to call next morning upon the woman in Primrose Court, in order to discover what had been the effect of my stratagem. I found her sitting in a state of excitement, and evidently in great alarm, gazing at the mattress. The words I had written on the wall had been carefully washed out.
'Well, Mrs. Gudgeon,' I said, 'what has become of your daughter?'
'Dead,' she whimpered, 'dead.'
'Yes, I know she's dead,' I said. 'But where is the body?'
'Where's the body? Why, buried, in course,' said the woman.
'Buried? Who buried her?' I said.