in
intellectual grasp, in emotional distinction. I should have said that
she was sealed by God to be the chaste, healthy, placid mother of men.
She was forever laughing--just the spontaneous laughter of the gladness
of life.

On the last afternoon of her existence she came to see me, bringing me
a basket of giant strawberries from her own particular bed. We had tea
in the garden, and with her young appetite she consumed half the fruit
she had brought. At the time I did not notice an unusual touch of
depression. I remember her holding by its stalk a great half-eaten
strawberry and asking me whether sometimes I didn't find life rather
rotten. I said idly:

"You can't expect the world to be a peach without a speck on it. Of
such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The wise person avoids the specks."

"But suppose you've bitten a specky bit by accident?"

"Spit it out," said I.

She laughed. "You think you're like the wise Uncle in the Sunday School
books, don't you?"

"I know I am," I said.

Whereupon she laughed again, finished the strawberry, and changed the
conversation.

There seemed to be no foreshadowing of tragedy in that. I had known her
(like many of her kind) to proclaim the rottenness of the Universe when
she was off her stroke at golf, or when a favourite young man did not
appear at a dance. I attributed no importance to it. But the next day I
remembered. What was she doing after half-past ten o'clock, when she
had bidden her father and mother goodnight, on the steep and lonely
bank of the canal, about a mile and a half away? No one had seen her
leave the house. No one, apparently, had seen her walking through the
town. Nothing was known of her until dawn when they found her body by
the lock gate. She had been dead some hours. It was a mysterious
affair, upon which no light was thrown at the inquest. No one save
myself had observed any sign of depression, and her half-bantering talk
with me was trivial enough. No one could adduce a reason for her
midnight walk on the tow-path. The obvious question arose. Whom had she
gone forth to meet? What man? There was not a man in the neighbourhood
with whom her name could be particularly associated. Generally, it
could be associated with a score or so. The modern young girl of her
position and upbringing has a drove of young male intimates. With one
she rides, with another she golfs, with another she dances a two-step,
with another she Bostons; she will let Tom read poet