I went in to Clare.  She was sitting in an armchair by the window.  When she turned her face to me, I recoiled in momentary shock.  Her poor, pretty little face was pinched and feverishly flushed; her brown eyes stared at me as if she was seeing ghosts.  Her hands were locked together on her knees, and she was huddled and shivering, though it was a warm morning.  I had known she would feel the shock terribly, but I had hardly been prepared for this.  I was seriously afraid she was going to be ill.

I knelt down beside her and drew her into my arms, where she lay passive, seeming hardly to realise me.

‘My poor little girl,’ I murmured.  ’Cry, darling.  Cry, and you will feel better.’

Clare was always more obedient than Jane.  She did cry.  She broke suddenly into the most terrible passion of tears.  I tried to hold her, but she pulled away from me and laid her head upon her arms and sobbed.

I stayed beside her and comforted her as best I could, and finally went to Jane’s medicine cupboard and mixed her a dose of sal volatile.

When she was a little quieter, I said, ’Tell me nothing more than you feel inclined to, darling.  But if it would make you happier to talk to me about it, do.’

‘I c-can’t talk about it,’ she sobbed.

‘My poor pet!...  Did it happen after you got here, or before?’

I felt her stiffen and grow tense, as at a dreadful memory.

‘After....  But I was in my room; I wasn’t there.’

‘You heard the fall, I suppose....’

She shuddered, and nodded.

‘And you came out....’  I helped her gently, ’as Jane did, and found him....’

She burst out crying afresh.  I almost wished I had not suggested this outlet for her horror and grief.

‘Don’t, mother,’ she sobbed.  ‘I can’t talk about it—­I can’t.’

’My pet, of course you can’t, and you shan’t.  It was thoughtless of me to think that speech would be a relief.  Lie down on your bed, dear, and have a good rest, and you will feel better presently.’

But she opposed that too.

‘I can’t stay here.  I want to go home at once.  At once, mother.’

’My dearest child, you must wait for me.  I can’t let you go alone in this state, and I can’t, of course, go myself until Jane is ready to come with me.’

‘I’m going,’ she repeated.  ‘I can go alone.  I’m going now, at once.’

And she began feverishly cramming her things into her suit-case.

I was anxious about her, but I did not like to thwart her in her present mood.  Then I heard Frank’s voice in the drawing-room, and I thought I would get him to accompany her, at least to the station.  Frank and Clare have always been fond of one another, and she has a special reliance on clergymen.

I went into the drawing-room, and found Frank and Johnny both there, with
Jane and Percy.  So that dreadful Jew must have gone.