'Then he seemed to wake up, and he looked at me with a look I hadn't ever seen before, and it was as if the world was at an end, because I saw he hated me for saying that. And he said, "Kindly let my affairs and Jane's alone," in a horrible, sharp, cold voice. I couldn't bear it. It seemed to kill something in me; my love for him, perhaps. I went first cold then hot, and I was crazy with anger; I pushed him back out of the way to let me pass--I pushed him suddenly, and so hard that he lost his balance.... Oh, you know the rest.... He was standing at the top of those awful stairs--why are people _allowed_ to make stairs like that?--and he reeled and fell backwards.... Oh, dear, oh, dear, and you know the rest....' She was sobbing bitterly now. 'Yes, yes,' I said, 'I know the rest,' and I said no more for a time. I was puzzled. That she had truly repeated what had passed between her and Hobart I believed. But whether she had pushed him, or whether he had lost his own balance, seemed to me still an open question. I had to consider two things--how best to help this girl, and how to get Gideon out of the mess as quickly and as quietly as possible. For both these things I had to get at the truth--if I could. 'Now, look here,' I said presently, 'is this story you've told me wholly true? Did it actually happen precisely like that? Please think for a moment and then tell me.' But she didn't think, not even for a moment. 'Oh,' she sobbed, 'true! Why should I _say_ it if it wasn't?' Why indeed? I began to enumerate some possible reasons--an inaccurate habit of mind, a sensational imagination (both these misfortunes being hereditary), an egotistic craving for attention, even unfavourable attention--it might be any of these things, or all. But I hadn't got far before she broke in, 'Oh, God. I've not had a moment's peace since ... I loved him, and I killed him.... I let them think it was an accident.... It was as if I was gagged, I _couldn't_ speak. And after a bit, when it had all settled down, there didn't seem to be any reason why I should say anything.... I never thought, truly I never thought, that they'd ever suspect some one else.... And then, a little while ago, I heard mother saying something, to some one about Mr. Gideon, and last night Katherine Varick came and told Jane people were saying it everywhere. And this morning there was that piece in the _Haste_. ... Oh! what shall I _do?_' 'You don't really,' I said, 'feel any doubt about that. Do you?' She lifted her wet, puckered face and stared at me, and I saw that, for the moment at least, she was not thinking of herself at all, but only of her tragedy and her problem. 'You mean,' she whispered, 'that I must tell ...' 'It's rather obvious, isn't it,' I said gently, because I was horribly sorry for her. 'You must tell the truth, whatever it is.' 'And be tried for murder--or manslaughter? Appear in the docks?' she quavered, her frightened brown eyes large and round.