mit firing off
her confidences at Mrs. Fyne--eight pages of close writing--that sort of
thing?"

Marlow shook his head.

"She did not tell me. I accepted her silence, as a kind of answer and
remarked that it would have been better if she had simply announced the
fact to Mrs. Fyne at the cottage. "Why didn't you do it?" I asked point-
blank.

She said: "I am not a very plucky girl." She looked up at me and added
meaningly: "And _you_ know it. And you know why."

I must remark that she seemed to have become very subdued since our first
meeting at the quarry. Almost a different person from the defiant, angry
and despairing girl with quivering lips and resentful glances.

"I thought it was very sensible of you to get away from that sheer drop,"
I said.

She looked up with something of that old expression.

"That's not what I mean. I see you will have it that you saved my life.
Nothing of the kind. I was concerned for that vile little beast of a
dog. No! It was the idea of--of doing away with myself which was
cowardly. That's what I meant by saying I am not a very plucky girl."

"Oh!" I retorted airily. "That little dog. He isn't really a bad little
dog." But she lowered her eyelids and went on:

"I was so miserable that I could think only of myself. This was mean. It
was cruel too. And besides I had _not_ given it up--not then."

* * * * *

Marlow changed his tone.

"I don't know much of the psychology of self-destruction. It's a sort of
subject one has few opportunities to study closely. I knew a man once
who came to my rooms one evening, and while smoking a cigar confessed to
me moodily that he was trying to discover some graceful way of retiring
out of existence. I didn't study his case, but I had a glimpse of him
the other day at a cricket match, with some women, having a good time.
That seems a fairly reasonable attitude. Considered as a sin, it is a
case for repentance before the throne of a merciful God. But I imagine
that Flora de Barral's religion under the care of the distinguished
governess could have been nothing but outward formality. Remorse in the
sense of gnawing shame and unavailing regret is only understandable to me
when some wrong had been done to a fellow-creature. But why she, that
girl who existed on sufferance, so to speak--why she should writhe
inwardly with remorse because she had once thought of getting rid of a
life which was nothing in every respect but a cu