"Oh, reasonably, so far as Miss Welsh knew, I'm sure. Mother was crying a little at one time, and I guess I did quote something or other from Shakespeare. I was sort of making a fool of myself." _Ten minutes from now, Mother, will it dawn on you what I said? You see, I haven't a notion what I'll be saying ten minutes from now. By the way, Mama, I don't see Cousin Maud. Is she home with the Plum Jam?_ "What Miss Welsh didn't hear, couldn't very well know, Mr. Warner, was that at the end we did get things sort of cleared up." _All right, stranger--no smile, just sad maternal forgiveness. One of Callie's little emotional upsets, you know--children are SO difficult!_ "And--here's why I thought it might not be out of place to mention it--that evening, that's when the suicidal depression left me. I wanted to live again. After I'd--said good-night to Mother." _Mama darling, why don't you lean over the rail, ask that fat guy at the press table, the bald one who looks intelligent--I think he'll tell you this is a murder trial. They're trying the funny-looking broad with the gimp leg._ "It left you suddenly, Callista, the depression? Like the end of a sickness?" "Yes." _Cecil, I love you._ "Yes, it was very much like that, Mr. Warner. Like coming out of a fever, or pain all at once ending. There was--too much upswing also, I guess you might call it. I was back with some of my illusions. I mean the illusions about Jimmy. I'd once more talked myself into imagining there might be--you know, a separation, what I'd been trying to write Jimmy about in that letter I never mailed. Most of the day, and even while I was talking with Ann on the phone, I was able to fool myself with that. Self-deception, it's like walking a tightrope, I guess: so long as you don't look down at the _fact_ of the ground a long way below, you can truly believe there's no danger, you're just walking. I think that all that day, until Ann came, I was--living inside of that illusion. Wanting something so much I couldn't see how ridiculous it was to expect it." _Look, Mother: I know I hurt you plenty of times. I was always nasty and hellishly difficult until I escaped from Shanesville and from you--but I never hurt you THAT much._ "I think now, Callista, you might go ahead and tell, in your own way, everything that happened that Sunday evening and night. I realize you'll be mostly repeating what you told Mr. Lamson last August, but I believe the jury wants to hear it direct from you, so--so just go ahead, my dear--take your time, try to remember everything important."