she rubs on the window is the stain of sin. Oh, she committed some crime! I have my choice of crimes. The woods flit and fly--in summer there are bluebells; in the opening there, when Spring comes, primroses. A parting, was it, twenty years ago? Vows broken? Not Minnie's!... She was faithful. How she nursed her mother! All her savings on the tombstone--wreaths under glass--daffodils in jars. But I'm off the track. A crime.... They would say she kept her sorrow, suppressed her secret--her sex, they'd say--the scientific people. But what flummery to saddle _her_ with sex! No--more like this. Passing down the streets of Croydon twenty years ago, the violet loops of ribbon in the draper's window spangled in the electric light catch her eye. She lingers--past six. Still by running she can reach home. She pushes through the glass swing door. It's sale-time. Shallow trays brim with ribbons. She pauses, pulls this, fingers that with the raised roses on it--no need to choose, no need to buy, and each tray with its surprises. "We don't shut till seven," and then it _is_ seven. She runs, she rushes, home she reaches, but too late. Neighbours--the doctor--baby brother--the kettle--scalded--hospital--dead--or only the shock of it, the blame? Ah, but the detail matters nothing! It's what she carries with her; the spot, the crime, the thing to expiate, always there between her shoulders. "Yes," she seems to nod to me, "it's the thing I did." Whether you did, or what you did, I don't mind; it's not the thing I want. The draper's window looped with violet--that'll do; a little cheap perhaps, a little commonplace--since one has a choice of crimes, but then so many (let me peep across again--still sleeping, or pretending sleep! white, worn, the mouth closed--a touch of obstinacy, more than one would think--no hint of sex)--so many crimes aren't _your_ crime; your crime was cheap; only the retribution solemn; for now the church door opens, the hard wooden pew receives her; on the brown tiles she kneels; every day, winter, summer, dusk, dawn (here she's at it) prays. All her sins fall, fall, for ever fall. The spot receives them. It's raised, it's red, it's burning. Next she twitches. Small boys point. "Bob at lunch to-day"--But elderly women are the worst. Indeed now you can't sit praying any longer. Kruger's sunk beneath the clouds--washed over as with a painter's brush of liquid grey, to which he adds a tinge of black--even the tip of the truncheon gone now. That's what always happens! Just as you've seen him, felt him, someone interrupts. It's Hilda now.