“I don’t know, dearie. They’ve got to find out who killed poor Horace, you know. Elsie, you’ve always been a sensible girl. You must tell them all you know, however dreadful to you it is to speak of such things. Or I’ll tell them for you, if you’d rather just have it out with mother. Didn’t you see anyone?” “Someone flew past, and as I turned to speak to Horace, I saw the blood coming out of his mouth.” “Who was it flew past?” said Mrs. Palmer. “I don’t know. It all happened in a flash, like,” said Elsie. “You and Horace were happy together, weren’t you?” “Yes, always,” said Elsie stolidly. She had made up her mind not to say anything else. “You didn’t quarrel?” “No, never.” “You’ll tell them that, won’t you, dearie? The police, I mean.” “It’s nothing to do with them,” said Elsie childishly. “Now don’t talk that way. That’s silly. You don’t seem to realise, my lady, the sort of mess you’re in.” Mrs. Palmer’s voice rose to stridency as she let her fear and her temper get the mastery of her attempt at caution. “My God, Elsie, can’t you see what it means? They may try you for murder. Murder--the same as the horrid common people in the newspapers. Who’s to know what happened--you and Horace in that empty street at one o’clock in the morning, and he gets done in, and whatever you may say--and mind you, I’ll back you up in it-they’ll get hold of the fact that you and poor Horace didn’t hit it off together.” “We were quite happy together.” “That’s right,” said Mrs. Palmer approvingly. “You stick to that.” Then she began to cry. “To think it should have come to this! I that have always held my head high--I don’t know what your aunts will say! It’ll be an awful shock for them.” Elsie hardly heard what her mother was saying. Waves of physical nausea kept on passing over her, and she was conscious of nothing but thankfulness when an elderly woman in uniform came to her with a cup of tea, and suggested that she should lie down and get some sleep. Elsie followed her, scarcely replying to Mrs. Palmer’s voluble farewell and assurances of her own speedy return. She could not afterwards have told where it was that she was taken, but a small, narrow bed awaited her, and she flung herself on to it and fell almost at once into the trance-like sleep of utter bodily and mental exhaustion. The same uniformed woman was waiting for her when she woke, after several hours, and the sight of her brought back in a sick rush the horrors of the morning. “Oh, I must go home!” cried Elsie. The woman took very little notice of her words, but she conducted her to a lavatory and helped her to make her toilette. Cold water and the effects of sleep combined slightly to steady the wretched Elsie. “I should like to go home at once, please,” she said, in a voice that she tried in vain to render firm.