She stalked out of the kitchen. For the life of her she could not have gone out in any other fashion. Had she attempted any other than the utmost bravado, she must have fallen. In the hall she met Molly and Ethel coming in; their faces were bright, their eyes were shining. What a good time they had had. That supper! That little impromptu dance afterwards! The tennis before supper! The walk home with Jim and Harry. Jim escorted Molly home; he had quite forgiven her, and Harry was untiring in his attentions to Ethel. Oh, what a glorious, glorified world they had been living in. But, now, what was the matter! They saw Nesta and looked into her face. Full of wrath they pounced upon her. "Don't," said Nesta. "Don't speak. Come in here." She took both their hands, dragged them into her father's study, and shut the door. "Look here, both of you," she said, "I've been beast; I've been the lowest down sort of a girl that ever lived, but you have been a degree worse, and we have killed mother. Yes, we have killed her." Ethel dropped into a chair and clasped her side with one hand. "You needn't believe me, but it's true. She was alone all the afternoon, and Marcia came home, and she saw mother, who was nearly gone, and the doctor is here and he is going to stay all night, and perhaps she'll be dead in the morning, and we have done it--we are her own children and we have done it. You and Molly and I; we have all done it; we are monsters; we are worse than beasts. We are horrors. I hate us! I _hate_ us! I hate us!" Each hate as it was hurled from her young lips was uttered with more emphasis than the last, and now she flung herself full length on the carpet--the dirty, faded carpet, and sobbed as though her heart would break. "We're not to go to her--she won't have any of us near her. She won't have us now--we gave her up--she was alone all the afternoon, and now we are not to go to her, we are to stay away; that's what we are to do." Molly was the first to recover her voice. "It can't be as bad as that," she said. Ethel looked up with a scared face. Molly's face was just as scared as her sisters'. As she uttered the words she sank, too, in a limp fashion, on the nearest chair. Then she unpinned her hat and flung it from her to the farthest end of the room. "You may stay there, you horrid thing," she said. Her gloves were treated in the same manner. She looked down at the bows on her dress and began unfastening them. "I hate them," she said. "Mother called them pretty. I hate them!" "What's the good of undressing yourself in that fashion?" said Ethel. "She had the beginning of the attack when I was with her," said Molly. "I am worse than you, Nesta, worse than you, Ethel, for you did not see her. I gave her some sal volatile, and she got sleepy, and I put a shawl over her and left her. I am worse than either of you."