cuousness in the county, its name would
be in every mouth, the papers, perhaps even the London papers, would
talk about it. At all times, in spite of the care and guidance it had
had from the clergy and gentry, the account of a murder gave Symford
more pure pleasure than any other form of entertainment; and now here
was one, not at second-hand, not to be viewed through the cooling
medium of print and pictures, but in its midst, before its eyes, at
its very doors. Mrs. Jones went up strangely in its estimation. The
general feeling was that it was an honour to have known her. Nobody
worked that day. The school was deserted. Dinners were not cooked.
Babies shrieked uncomforted. All Symford was gathered in groups
outside Mrs. Jones's cottage, and as the day wore on and the news
spread, visitors from the neighbouring villages, from Minehead and
from Ullerton, arrived with sandwiches and swelled them.

Priscilla saw these groups from her windows. The fatal cottage was at
the foot of the hill in full view both of her bedroom and her parlour.
Only by sitting in the bathroom would she be able to get away from it.
When the news was brought her, breathlessly, pallidly, by Annalise in
the early morning with her hot water, she refused to believe it.
Annalise knew no English and must have got hold of a horrible wrong
tale. The old lady was dead no doubt, had died quietly in her sleep as
had been expected, but what folly was all this about a murder? Yet she
sat up in bed and felt rather cold as she looked at Annalise, for
Annalise was very pallid. And then at last she had to believe it.
Annalise had had it told her from beginning to end, with the help of
signs, by the charwoman. She had learned more English in those few
crimson minutes than in the whole of the time she had been in England.
The charwoman had begun her demonstration by slowly drawing her finger
across her throat from one ear to the other, and Annalise repeated the
action for Priscilla's clearer comprehension. How Priscilla got up
that day and dressed she never knew. Once at least during the process
she stumbled back on to the bed and lay with her face on her arms,
shaken by a most desperate weeping. That fatal charity; those fatal
five-pound notes. Annalise, panic-stricken lest she who possessed so
many should be the next victim, poured out the tale of the missing
money, of the plain motive for the murder, with a convincingness, a
naked truth, that stabbed Priscilla to