"Then why," he said quietly, meeting her eyes, "were you frightened at the inquest?" She averted her eyes. "I wasn't--I mean--I was nervous, of course." "You were frightened of what you might slip into saying. You told me so ten minutes ago." "Oh, if you're trying to trap me?" she flashed out wrathfully. He rejoiced at the tone. It was the impetuous Alwynne of his daily intercourse again. The mere relief of discussion was, as he had guessed, having a tonic effect on her nerves. He smiled at her pleasantly. "Don't tell me anything more, if you'd rather not." She subsided at this. "I didn't mean to be angry," she faltered. "Only I've guarded myself so from telling. You see, I lied at the inquest. It was perjury, I suppose." There was a little touch of importance in her tone. "But I'll tell you." She hesitated, her older self once more supervening. "Afterwards--when the doctor had come, and they took Louise away--after that ghastly afternoon was over----" She whitened. "It was ghastly, you know--so many people--crowding and gaping--I dream of all those crowded faces----" "Well?" he urged her forward. "I went up to the room where she had changed, to see that the children had gone----" "She fell from that room?" "She must have. After she had changed. She'd locked the door--to change. I broke it open. I thought she had fainted--a baby told me something about Louise falling--lisping so, I couldn't make out what she meant--and I'd run up to see. It turned out afterwards that little Joan had been in a lower room, and had seen her body as it fell past the window." "How beastly!" he said, with an involuntary shudder. "And when I got the door open--an empty room. Something made me look out of the window. She was down below--right under me--on the steps." She was silent. "But afterwards?" he urged her. "You went up again?" "I had to. I was afraid already--recollecting little things. I looked about, in case she'd left a message. And on the window-ledge--there were great scratches. Then I knew." She was forgetting him, staring into space, peopled as it was with her memories. "I don't understand," he said. She did not answer. "Alwynne!" he said urgently. She looked at him absently. "Scratches? What are you driving at?" "Oh," she said dully, "there was a nail in her shoe. She had tried to hammer it in at the morning school. It had made scratches all over the rostrum. I was rather cross about it." "But I don't see," he began, and stopped, realising suddenly her meaning. "You mean--she must have stood on the ledge--to make those marks?" "Yes," said Alwynne. Then, fiercely, "Well?" "Yes, that's conclusive," he admitted. He looked at her pityingly. "You poor child! And you never told?" "I got a paint-box," she said defiantly, "and painted them brown--like the paintwork. It would have broken up Clare to know--and all the questions and comments. What would you have done?"