me pass--I pushed him suddenly, and so hard that he lost his balance....
Oh, you know the rest.... He was standing at the top of those awful
stairs--why are people _allowed_ to make stairs like that?--and he reeled
and fell backwards.... Oh, dear, oh, dear, and you know the rest....'

She was sobbing bitterly now.

'Yes, yes,' I said, 'I know the rest,' and I said no more for a time.

I was puzzled. That she had truly repeated what had passed between her
and Hobart I believed. But whether she had pushed him, or whether he had
lost his own balance, seemed to me still an open question. I had to
consider two things--how best to help this girl, and how to get Gideon
out of the mess as quickly and as quietly as possible. For both these
things I had to get at the truth--if I could.

'Now, look here,' I said presently, 'is this story you've told me wholly
true? Did it actually happen precisely like that? Please think for a
moment and then tell me.'

But she didn't think, not even for a moment.

'Oh,' she sobbed, 'true! Why should I _say_ it if it wasn't?'

Why indeed? I began to enumerate some possible reasons--an inaccurate
habit of mind, a sensational imagination (both these misfortunes being
hereditary), an egotistic craving for attention, even unfavourable
attention--it might be any of these things, or all. But I hadn't got far
before she broke in, 'Oh, God. I've not had a moment's peace since ... I
loved him, and I killed him.... I let them think it was an accident....
It was as if I was gagged, I _couldn't_ speak. And after a bit, when it
had all settled down, there didn't seem to be any reason why I should say
anything.... I never thought, truly I never thought, that they'd ever
suspect some one else.... And then, a little while ago, I heard mother
saying something, to some one about Mr. Gideon, and last night Katherine
Varick came and told Jane people were saying it everywhere. And this
morning there was that piece in the _Haste_. ... Oh! what shall I _do?_'

'You don't really,' I said, 'feel any doubt about that. Do you?'

She lifted her wet, puckered face and stared at me, and I saw that, for
the moment at least, she was not thinking of herself at all, but only of
her tragedy and her problem.

'You mean,' she whispered, 'that I must tell ...'

'It's rather obvious, isn't it,' I said gently, because I was horribly
sorry for her. 'You must tell the truth, whatever it is.'

'And be tried for murder--or mans