breviary in the corner of a railway-carriage. That was how it
presented itself to me.

They seemed to take no notice of me; I don't suppose that I was even
addressed by one of them. But, as long as one or the other, or all three
of them were there, they stood between me as if, I being the titular
possessor of the corpse, had a right to be present at their conferences.
Then they all went away and I was left alone for a long time.

And I thought nothing; absolutely nothing. I had no ideas; I had no
strength. I felt no sorrow, no desire for action, no inclination to
go upstairs and fall upon the body of my wife. I just saw the pink
effulgence, the cane tables, the palms, the globular match-holders, the
indented ash-trays. And then Leonora came to me and it appears that I
addressed to her that singular remark:

"Now I can marry the girl."

But I have given you absolutely the whole of my recollection of that
evening, as it is the whole of my recollection of the succeeding three
or four days. I was in a state just simply cataleptic. They put me to
bed and I stayed there; they brought me my clothes and I dressed; they
led me to an open grave and I stood beside it. If they had taken me to
the edge of a river, or if they had flung me beneath a railway train,
I should have been drowned or mangled in the same spirit. I was the
walking dead.

Well, those are my impressions.

What had actually happened had been this. I pieced it together
afterwards. You will remember I said that Edward Ashburnham and the girl
had gone off, that night, to a concert at the Casino and that Leonora
had asked Florence, almost immediately after their departure, to follow
them and to perform the office of chaperone. Florence, you may also
remember, was all in black, being the mourning that she wore for a
deceased cousin, Jean Hurlbird. It was a very black night and the girl
was dressed in cream-coloured muslin, that must have glimmered under the
tall trees of the dark park like a phosphorescent fish in a cupboard.
You couldn't have had a better beacon.

And it appears that Edward Ashburnham led the girl not up the straight
allee that leads to the Casino, but in under the dark trees of the park.
Edward Ashburnham told me all this in his final outburst. I have told
you that, upon that occasion, he became deucedly vocal. I didn't pump
him. I hadn't any motive. At that time I didn't in the least connect him
with my wife. But the fellow talked like a c