20.

"Her death?" There was a silence that seemed to make the shadowy place darker. He could hardly see her face now, she was so far off. "How could I be responsible?" she broke off, and then began again: "Are you — trying to tell me — that it wasn't an accident?"

"No — it wasn't an accident."

"She — you mean she killed herself?"

"Yes."

"Because of us?"

He could not speak, and after a moment she hurried on: "But what makes you think so? What proof have you? Did she leave a message — a letter?"

He summoned his voice to his dry throat. "No; nothing."

"Well, then —?"

"She'd told me beforehand; she'd warned me —"

"Warned you?"

"That if I went on seeing you... and I did go on seeing you... She warned me again and again. Do you understand now?" he exclaimed, twisting round on her fiercely, like an animal turning to snap at its torturer.

There was an interval of silence — endless it seemed to him. She did not speak or move, but suddenly he heard a low sobbing sound; she was weeping, weeping like a frightened child... Well, of all the unexpected twists of fate! A moment ago he had seemed to feel her strength flowing into his cold veins, had thought to himself: "I shall never again be alone with my horror —" and now the horror had communicated itself to her, and he felt her inwardly recoiling from him as though she shuddered away from the contagion.

"Oh, how dreadful, how dreadful —" She began to cry again, like a child swept by a fresh gust of misery as the last subsides.