“Good Lord, are they going to make her give evidence?” “How can they help it? She, and Harter himself, are the survivors of the accident.” Christopher groaned. “That little reptile, and a worthless woman! And a good fellow like that,” said Christopher simply. “It would wring tears from a stone to hear the poor old father talking about him, saying what a good boy he was, and how fond the little stepbrothers were of him. It seems he was clever, too, although you’d never have guessed it--a nice fellow like that,” said Christopher simply. “Well,” I said, “it’s the cutting of the Gordian knot, for Bill, all right.” The day and the night that preceded the inquest seemed endless. There was no possibility of restoring any sort of balance to everyday life, until that was over. Mary asked again if Mrs. Harter would see her, and was again refused. “She still hasn’t seen her husband,” said the nurse, very much shocked. She was quite newly arrived in the district. “What is she doing?” asked Sallie, her eyes wide. “Nothing. She’s up, you know--she’s got to get up her strength for this afternoon, poor thing. It’ll be an ordeal for her, like. She’s just sitting by the window, with her hands crossed on her lap, so.” Just as she had sat at her window in the Queen Street lodgings, Mary remembered. Then Sallie surprised even her mother by suddenly inquiring of the nurse, “How is Mr. Harter?” One rather wonders if it wasn’t the first time that anyone had thought of asking that, since the accident. Even the nurse, Mary said, seemed a little bit startled. “Oh, he wasn’t hurt, you know,” she began. “I know,” said Sallie--“but I suppose it’s been a shock for him, too--worse, in fact, for him.” “Of course, of course,” the little nurse agreed. “He’s--he’s a very quiet man, isn’t he? Kept his nerve well, and all that--which makes it all the more strange he should have had such an accident. But there’s no accounting. He’s been up here a good deal, of course--hoping his wife would come to reason, I dare say. I told him that in his place, I’d simply go up, and walk in on her. It’s all nerves, that makes her say she won’t see him. ‘If I were you,’ I told him straight--” She began the typical hospital nurse’s monologue. Sallie, the medical student, quite ruthlessly interrupted her by saying good morning, and walking out of the room. “I had to ask about Harter,” she explained afterwards to Mary. “Can you imagine what it must be like, to feel responsible for the death of two people? Especially if one hated one of them.” “Do you suppose that he hated Bill?” “I know he did. I saw him watching Bill and Mrs. Harter, on the night of ‘The Bulbul Ameer’--Oh, doesn’t all that seem ages ago?--And, honestly, they did try him pretty high.” Mary could not deny it. “It strikes me,” said Sallie, quite quietly, “that it’s on the cards that friend Harter may actually find himself committed for trial, on a charge of manslaughter.” Nobody else had dared to say it.