For a moment her eyes searched his face wistfully; then with sudden decision, she began to speak. CHAPTER XXXIV Alwynne's words, after the months of silence, came rushing out, breaking down all barriers, sweeping on in unnatural fluency. Yet she was simple and direct, entirely sincere; accepting him at his own valuation, impersonally, as confessor and comforter, without a side glance at the impression she might make, or its effect on their after relations. She told him the story of Louise; and he felt sick as he listened. Unintentionally, for she was obviously absorbed in her school and uncritical in her attitude to it, she gave him a vivid enough impression of the system in force, of the deliberate encouragement of much that he considered unhealthy, if not unnatural. He detected an hysterical tendency in the emulations and enthusiasms to which she referred. The gardener in him revolted at the thought of such congestion of minds and bodies. He felt as indignant as if he had discovered a tray of unthinned seedlings. Alwynne conveyed to him, more clearly than she knew, an idea of the forcing-house atmosphere that she, and those still younger than she, had been breathing. The friend she so constantly mentioned, repelled him; he thought of her with distaste, as of an unscrupulous and unskilful hireling; he was amazed at the affection of Alwynne's references to her. Only in connection with the dead child was there a hint of uncertainty in her attitude. There perhaps, she admitted, had "Clare" been, not unkind--never and impossibly unkind--but perhaps, with the best of motives, mistaken. She had not understood Louise. Roger agreed silently and grimly enough. She had not understood Louise, whom she had killed, nor this loyal and affectionate child, whom she was driving into melancholia, nor any one it appeared, nor anything, but the needs of her own barrenly emotional nature.... He was horrified at the idea of such a woman, such a type of woman, in undisputed authority, moulding the mothers of the next generation.... He had never considered the matter seriously, but he supposed she was but one of many.... There must be something poisonous in a system that could render possible the placing of such women in such positions.... "Then what happened, after that poor child's death?" he asked. "She left, of course?" "Who?" "Your friend--'Clare'--Miss----?" "Hartill. Oh, no! Why should she?" "I should have thought--suicide--bad for the school's reputation?" "Then you think it was--that--too? It was supposed to be an accident." "How do you mean, 'supposed'?"