There was a silence. Slowly she lifted shaking hands, warding him off.

"No, no!" she said. "For pity's sake. You are calling her back." Then, struck with a new idea, she grew, if possible, whiter still. "Unless,"

she said, whispering, "you saw her--you too? Then there is no hope. I thought it was in my mind--only in my mind--but if you saw her too----"

Her voice failed.

He thrust in hastily, ready enough to comfort her, but knowing well that the time had not come. Yet he felt like a surgeon at his first operation.

"No, you are mistaken. There was no one. I don't even know who Louise is. Only you mentioned her--once or twice, you see."

"Did I?" she said. Then, with an effort at a commonplace tone: "I was stupidly upset. You must excuse----"

He broke in.

"Who is Louise?" he asked her bluntly.

"A ghost," said Alwynne, white to the lips.

Again they were blankly silent.

Then she spoke, with extraordinary pa.s.sion--

"If you laugh--it will be wicked if you laugh at me."

"I'm not thinking of laughing," he said, with the petulance of extreme anxiety.

She met his look and shrugged her shoulders.

"Then you think I'm crazy," she began defiantly. "I can't help it, what you think." She changed the subject transparently. "Roger, it's nice here. What are the names of all these flowers? Are those big ones daffodils, or jonquils, or narcissi? I never know the difference. I never remember----" Her voice trailed into silence.

"But look here," he began, and stopped again abruptly, deep in thought.

The flame of the spirit-lamp on the shelf between them flickered and failed, and sputtered up again noisily. Mechanically he rose to extinguish it, and, still absently, cleared the little table of its china and eatables.

Then he sat down once more, and leant forward, his arms on the table, his expression determined, yet very friendly.

"Alwynne," he said, in his most matter-of-fact voice, "hadn't you better tell me all about it?"

"You?"

"Why not?" he said comfortably. "You'll feel ever so much better if you get if off your chest."

For an instant she hesitated: then she shook her head wearily.

"I would like to tell some one. But I can't. I sound mad, even to myself. I couldn't tell any one. I couldn't tell Elsbeth even."

"Of course not," he agreed. "You can't worry your own people."

"No, you can't, can you?" she said, grateful for his comprehension.

"Of course not. But you see--I'm different. Whatever your trouble is, it won't worry me--because I don't care for you like Elsbeth and your friends. So you can just ease off on me--d'you see? If I do think you mad, it just doesn't matter, does it? What does it matter telling some one a secret when you'll never see them again? Don't you see?" he argued rea.s.suringly.

She nodded dumbly. The cheerful, impersonal kindness of his voice and air made her want to cry. She realised how she had been aching for sympathy.

"Don't you see?" he repeated.

"You wouldn't make fun?" she asked him. "You wouldn't tell any one? You wouldn't talk me over?"

"No, Alwynne," he said gravely.

For a moment her eyes searched his face wistfully; then with sudden decision, she began to speak.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude. 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'?"

"There was an inquest, you see. I had to go. I was so frightened all the time, of what I might slip into saying. But they all agreed that it was an accident. She was fond of curling up in the window-seats with her books. Oh, she was a queer little thing! When you came on her suddenly, she used to look up like a startled baby colt. She always looked as if she wanted some one to run to. Well, there was no guard, you see, only an inch of ledge--she had not been well--she must have felt faint--and fallen. They all said it was that. I was so thankful--for Clare's sake.

She could not reproach herself--after such a verdict. It was 'Accidental Death.' Only--I--of course--I knew. Some of them guessed--Clare--and I believe Elsbeth, though we never discussed it--and I knew. But n.o.body said anything--n.o.body has, ever since, except once Clare told me--what she feared. I never managed to persuade her that it was an accident, but at least she doesn't know for certain, and at least she knows she couldn't help it. And now we never speak of it. But _I_ know----"

"What do you know?" he said. "You found out something?"

"She did--she did kill herself," said Alwynne. "Oh, Roger, she did. I've known it all along--I should have guessed anyway, I think, because I knew how unhappy she was. I knew how awfully she cared about Clare.

Clare was very good to her sometimes. Clare was fond of her, you know.

Clare takes violent fancies like that, to clever people. And Louise was brilliant, of course. Clare was charmed with her. Only Louise--this is how I've thought it out; oh, I've had time to think it out--she just got drunk on it, the happiness, I mean, of being cared for. She hadn't much of a home. She was rather an ugly duckling to her people, I think. Then Clare made a fuss of her, and you see, she was so little, she couldn't see that--it didn't mean much to Clare. And I don't think grown-up people understand how girls are--they have to worship some one, at that age. Clare doesn't quite understand, I think. She is too sensible herself to realise how girls can be silly. She is awfully good to them, but, of course, she never dreams how miserable they get when she gets bored with them. She can't help it."

Roger's face was expressive--but Alwynne was staring at the uneasy b.u.t.terfly.

"It doesn't matter, as a rule. Only Louise had no one else--and it just broke her heart. If she had been grown-up it would have been like being in love."