She wondered. Was that really why they did it? She thought it was because they couldn't bear to leave him there, four days and four nights, alone. She said so. But Roddy went on in his hard, flat voice, beating out his truth. "We never did anything to make him happy." "He _was_ happy," she said. "When Mark went. He had Mamma." "Yes, but he must have known about us. He must have known about us all the time." "What did he know about us?" "That we didn't care. "Don't you remember," he said, "the things we used to say about him?" She remembered. She could see Dan in the nursery at Five Elms, scowling and swearing he would kill Papa. She could see Roddy, and Mark with his red tight face, laughing at him. She could see herself, a baby, kicking and screaming when he took her in his arms. For months she hadn't thought about him except to wish he wasn't there so that she could go on playing. When he was in the fit she had been playing on the Kendals' piano, conceited and happy, not caring. Supposing all the time, deep down, in his secret mysterious life, _he_ had cared? "We must leave off thinking about him," Roddy said. "If we keep on thinking we shall go off our heads." "We _are_ off our heads," she said. Their hatred of themselves was a biting, aching madness. She hated the conceited, happy self that hadn't cared. The piano, gleaming sombrely in the hushed light, reminded her of it. She hated the piano. They dragged themselves back into the dining-room where Mamma and Dan sat doing nothing, hiding their faces from each other. The afternoon went on. Utter callousness, utter weariness came over them. Their mother kept looking at the clock. "Uncle Victor will have got to Durlingham," she said. An hour ago she had said, "Uncle Victor will have got to York." Their minds clung to Uncle Victor as they had clung, four days ago, to Dan, because of his unconsciousness. X. Uncle Victor had put his arm on her shoulder. He was leaning rather heavily. He saw what she saw: the immense coffin set up on trestles at the foot of the bed; the sheeted body packed tight in the padded white lining, the hands, curling a little, smooth and stiff, the hands of a wax figure; the firm, sallowish white face; the brown stains, like iodine, about the nostrils; the pale under lip pushed out, proudly. A cold, thick smell, like earth damped with stagnant water, came up to them, mixed with the sharp, piercing smell of the coffin. The vigilant, upright coffin-lid leaned with its sloping shoulders against the chimney-piece, ready. In spite of his heavy hand she was aware that Uncle Victor's consciousness of these things was different from hers. He did not appear to be in the least sorry for Papa. On his face, wistful, absorbed, there was a faint, incongruous smile. He might have been watching a child playing some mysterious game. He sighed. His eyes turned from the coffin to the coffin-lid. He stared at the black letters on the shining brass plate.