And since Mr. Trimblerigg pleaded exhaustion, his proud mother told it herself; and Davidina listened gratefully, fixing upon her brother Jonathan a kind and considerate regard. Her mother told it all accurately, just as she had heard it from Jonathan; and when it had all been rehearsed in her ears--our own Mr. Trimblerigg sitting opposite the while and furtively regarding her, rather like a Skye terrier that has just been washed and whipped--she said not a word to question the accuracy of the story. She accepted it; and when her mother said that she ought to feel most grateful to brother Jonathan for all he had done in trying to save her at the risk of his own life, she said that she was. She said also that the last thing she remembered was his voice calling, ‘Davidina, where are you?’ And as, weary and weak of tone, she thus corroborated his story, she gave him a friendly look and a faint smile; and then shut her eyes at him, as if to say, ‘The incident is now closed.’ And so upon Davidina’s side, as far as words went, it was. But with the mere shutting of her eyes she gave Mr. Trimblerigg a sleepless night; and for many nights and days after, she held him in a grip from which there was no escape. And then some of her answers to the maternal inquiries would flash into his memory with a horribly disturbing effect. ‘But Davidina, however did you come to bring the parcels along?’ ‘I went back for them: I thought Jonathan might have forgotten them; and so he had.’ And when Mr. Trimblerigg defended such forgetfulness as being only natural under the circumstances, Davidina replied, ‘He didn’t forget the other parcel, he saved that.’ ‘Which parcel?’ ‘The one that fell in. He saw that, and thought it was me, and swam after it; and it must have been a sort of satisfaction saving that, as he couldn’t get me.’ Such clairvoyance was horrible; it was as if her eye had flown with him like a firefly in the night watching every movement not of his body only but of his mind as well? And what made it so much more terrible was that he could not understand her motive, or how it was to end. But day followed day, and no revelation was made; his story stood uncorrected; neighbours came to call and congratulate and at each occasion the story was told again. Sometimes Mr. Trimblerigg himself was made to tell it, in spite of a modest reluctance which grew and grew; and there always sat Davidina listening with kind eyes and a friendly smile. Then the eyes would shut suddenly, and the smile would remain. When she had done this to him two or three times, Mr. Trimblerigg was ready to scream; and when she also did it to him the first time they were alone together, he wanted either to die or to murder her. Then, finding he could do neither, he gathered up his courage and was about to speak. But it was no good. Davidina opened her eyes again.