She leant forward across the vestry table, locking and unlocking her hands.

‘This is quite private, isn’t it,’ she said.  ‘As private as if...?’

‘Quite,’ I told her.

She drew a long, shivering breath, and leant her forehead on her clasped hands.

‘You know,’ she said, so low that I had to bend forward to catch it, ’what people are saying—­what my people suspect about—­about Oliver Hobart’s death.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Well—­it wasn’t Mr. Gideon.’

‘You know that?’ I said quickly.  And a great relief flooded me.  I hadn’t known, until that moment, because I had driven it under, how large a part of my brain believed that Gideon had perhaps done this thing.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.  ‘I know it ...  Because I know—­I know—­who did it.’

In that moment I felt that I knew too, and that Gideon knew, and that I ought to have guessed all along.

I said nothing, but waited for the girl’s next word, if she had a next word to say.  It wasn’t for me to question her.

And then, quite suddenly, she gave a little moan of misery and broke into passionate tears.

I waited for a moment, then I got up and poured her out a glass of water.  It must have been pretty bad for her.  It must have been pretty bad all this time, I thought, knowing this thing about her sister.

She drank the water, and became quieter.

‘Do you want to tell me any more?’ I asked her, presently.

’Oh, I do, I do.  But it’s so difficult ...  I don’t know how to tell you....  Oh, God ...  It was I that killed him!’

‘Yes?’ I said, after a moment, gently, and without apparent surprise.  One learns in parish work not to start, however much one may be startled.  I merely added a legitimate inquiry.  ‘Why was that?’

She gulped.  ‘I want to tell you everything.  I want to.’

I was sure she did.  She had reached the familiar pouring-out stage.  It was obviously going to be a relief to her to spread herself on the subject.  I am pretty well used to being told everything, and at times a good deal more, and have learnt to discount much of it.  I looked away from her and prepared to listen, and to give my mind to sifting, if I could, the fact from the fancy in her story.  This is a special art, and one which all parsons do well to learn.  I have heard my vicar on the subject of women’s confessions.

’Women—­women.  Some of them will invent any crime—­give themselves away with both hands—­merely to make themselves interesting.  Poor things, they don’t realise how tedious sin is.  One has to be on one’s guard the whole time, with that kind.’

I deduced that Clare Potter might possibly be that kind.  So I listened carefully, at first neither believing nor disbelieving.

‘It’s difficult to tell you,’ she began, in a pathetic, unsteady voice.  ‘It hurts, rather ...’