Jane Cupp heard both questions and answers.  Ameerah professed to know nothing but such things as the whole village knew.  Towards the end of the discussion, however, in a mixture of broken English and Hindustani, she conveyed that she had believed that the girl would drown herself.  Asked why, she shook her head, then said that she had seen her by the Mem Sahib’s lake at the end of the trees.  She had asked if the water was deep enough, near the bridge, to drown.  Ameerah had answered that she did not know.

There was a general exclamation.  They all knew it was deep there.  The women shuddered as they remembered how deep they had been told it was at that particular spot.  It was said that there was no bottom to it.  Everybody rather revelled in the gruesomeness of the idea of a bottomless piece of water.  Someone remembered that there was a story about it.  As much as ninety years ago two young labourers on the place had quarrelled about a young woman.  One day, in the heat of jealous rage one had seized the other and literally thrown him into the pond.  He had never been found.  No drags could reach his body.  He had sunk into the blackness for ever.

Ameerah sat at the table with downcast eyes.  She had a habit of sitting silent with dropped eyes, which Jane could not bear.  As she drank her tea she watched her in spite of herself.

After a few minutes had passed, her appetite for bread and butter deserted her.  She got up and left the hall, looking pale.

The mental phases through which she went during the afternoon ended in her determination to go down the avenue and to the water’s side this evening.  It could be done while her ladyship and her guests were at dinner.  This evening the Vicar and his wife and daughter were dining at the Manor.

Jane took in emotionally all the mysterious silence and dimness of the long tree-pillared aisle, and felt a tremor as she walked down it, trying to hold herself in hand by practical reflections half whispered.

“I’m just going to have a look, to make sure,” she said, “silly or not.  I’ve got upset through not being able to help watching that woman, and the way to steady my nerves is to make sure I’m just giving in to foolishness.”

She walked as fast as she could towards the water.  She could see its gleam in the dim light, but she must pass a certain tree before she could see the little bridge itself.

“My goodness!  What’s that?” she said suddenly.  It was something white, which rose up as if from the ground, as if from the rushes growing at the water’s edge.

Just a second Jane stood, and choked, and then suddenly darted forward, running as fast as she could.  The white figure merely moved slowly away among the trees.  It did not run or seem startled, and as Jane ran she caught it by its white drapery, and found herself, as she had known she would, dragging at the garments of Ameerah.  But Ameerah only turned round and greeted her with a welcoming smile, mild enough to damp any excitement.