He nodded dumbly. Throwing himself into a chair, he cupped his face in trembling fingers. “Yes, Anne, Claire is dead. And I have killed her as surely as if I’d stuck a knife into her, or put poison into her food.”
Anne’s hands flew instinctly to her mouth to check a cry.
“What do you mean?” Was it possible that——?
His misery-laden eyes encountered the question in hers without comprehending its horrible significance.
“The child. My child,” he replied with tragic simplicity.
“Ah!” Anne leaned her head against the chair-back. She closed her eyes while a species of lucid swoon swept over her. So Claire was dead. They had killed her between them. She and Alexis had killed a woman. For if Alexis was guilty, so was she. Was she not the indirect cause of the girl’s misery? Might not Alexis have gone back to Claire if it had not been for herself? That was problematical and open to doubt, so her uncanny lucidity informed her. But the fact remained they had killed her between them. And yet the very first time that Anne had seen Claire she already bore within herself the seeds of death. Tragic germ of life, that contains death! Poor, poor Claire!
“Poor Claire,” she moaned beneath her breath almost unconsciously. “And—the child?” she faltered, sturdily defiant of her fear.
“Lives.”
“Thank God.” Anne’s face was suddenly wet with tears. “Tell me about it.” From a gulf of despair, Anne’s voice smote upon his misery.
“It was horrible. Her face, her poor little dead face! I cannot sleep at night for seeing it.” He wrung tortured hands.