"How should I know who he is? He said he was a connection of yours."

"You know that's untrue."

"Then who was he?"

"He was a friend of yours presumably."

"I tell you, I don't know who he is. He was at the recital at your home... and then he came to the house to look at it. That's all I know of him."

Rollo looked skeptical. "How did he get into the house?"

"He told you. He got the key from the house agent."

"I know too much, Ellen. I have made it my business to find out. He met you there by appointment and I came in and surprised you."

"That's monstrous."

"I can only draw the obvious conclusions. You had one key, Philip had the other, which I used. There was no third key. I spoke to the agent and asked him why he had given that man a key and he said he had given a key to no one but ourselves. There was only one way that man could have got into the house. You let him in. Don't lie to me any more, but don't be surprised if when you refuse to tell me the truth I draw my own conclusions."

"This is nonsense," I cried. "I did not let him into the house. I was as surprised to see him as you were. He did have a key and the agent is lying."

Rollo rose. "I would have respected you more had you confessed the truth. You were obviously very friendly with this man. I believe that this is at the root of the mystery and you know the answer. Philip died because of something you had done to him and you are responsible for his death."

"How can you! How dare you! It's such lies... ."

"So many lies have been told, I can see. But Philip is dead now. I wish to God he had never seen you."

Then he went and I think that was the most unhappy time I had ever lived through.

I was desolate. I had lost Philip and with him everything. I could have borne this better if it were not for the fact that Rollo despised me and suspected me so cruelly and unfairly of knowing something, of doing something, of being something I was not. He would not believe that Philip's death was as much a mystery to me as it was to him.

I went for long walks but there was no comfort. There I had been with Philip. There was hardly any spot in the neighborhood which had not been one of our haunts. I rode out alone although Esmeralda always tried to accompany me, but then I would come to the inn where Philip and I—or perhaps the three of us but I suppose neither of us gave much thought to Esmeralda—had stopped for cider and a sandwich. There was the old smithy who had shoed our horses. He called a greeting to me as I passed, but his eyes were downcast and he did not know what to say. It was the same in the village where they had known us as children. They looked at me covertly and I knew the question which was in all their minds: Why had Philip killed himself? It was something to do with me. He would rather die than marry me. That was the inference everyone was putting on it.

I couldn't resist going to Dead Man's Leap. There I would sit on the old wooden seat and brood over the many times when Philip and I had played in the woods from which we had emerged with a reluctant Esmeralda and forced her to witness our bravery in standing on the edge.

. Dead Man's Leap! I thought a great deal about people who had found life so intolerable that they wanted to end it and I wondered what their tragedies had been to bring them to such a pass. One thing I was certain of. Philip had never been in that state. He could not have killed himself. But that had been the verdict. Why?Had Ireally known that boy with whom I had shared my childhood? Does one person ever really know another. I had always thought Philip was easy to understand. He said what was in his mind and rarely paused to think what effect his words might have. He was easygoing, good-tempered, a little lazy perhaps, eager for the good things of life but not liable to make any effort to get them, the son of a rich family who had never really lacked anything he wanted. That was how I had thought of Philip, but how much had I known of what lurked in the dark recesses of his mind?

A great melancholy would descend upon me as I sat on that seat. Esmeralda asked me where I had been and when I told her she was horrified. "You shouldn't go there," she said, "it's morbid."

"It suits my mood," I replied. "I can think of Philip there and in a strange way it comforts me."

"I'll come with you," she would say, but I always protested: "No, no. I want to be alone."

She was worried about me.

One morning when I was in the woods I had the strange feeling thatI was not alone. I wasn't sure quite what made me think so. Perhaps I heard an unexpected noise—the dislodging of a stone, the rustle of leaves, the sudden scuttling of some disturbed animal. But as I sat on the wooden seat I sensed a presence. I thought: Is it true that the spirits of those poor souls who ended their lives abruptly cannot rest and come back to the last place they knew on earth? That was what was generally believed by those who said the place was haunted.

Oddly enough, instead of repelling me, this feeling attracted me. Perhaps I felt that I might be in touch with Philip and he would come back and tell me why he had died.

So every morning my footsteps led me almost involuntarily to Dead Man's Leap, and often I had the feeling that I was observed.

It was a hot sultry morning and I was glad to be in the cool woods. It was one of those still silent mornings when people say there is thunder in the air. More than ever I had the feeling that I was being watched as I sat on the seat and thought of Philip, wishing fervently that I could hear him whisper my name. I wished that I were young and carefree again when my chief desire had been to score over Philip and prove to him that girls were just as good as boys. I should have liked to go back to the time of our engagement that I might take less for granted and try to understand more about the man I was to marry. No matter what the evidence, no matter what the verdict, I could never accept the idea that he had killed himself. There must be another explanation.

I went to the path as I always did before returning. I liked to look down into the bushes far below and remember the thrill it used to give me as a child.

I gripped the rail and leaned forward and then suddenly it swung forward, taking me with it, so that I was clinging to it and hanging in mid-air. A startled bird flew up, brushing my face as it went past me. I had time to think: This is the end! before I fell.

I opened my eyes. I could scarcely breathe so fast was my heart beating. I looked down; far below were the tops of trees. I felt my feet slipping and I clutched at the bushes into which I had fallen.

Then I saw what had happened. By incredible good luck I had only fallen, a few feet before my skirts had been caught in one of the thick clumps of bushes which grew on the steep hillside.

For some minutes I was unable to do anything but hang on with all my might. Then my heartbeats began to slow down and I was able to take stock of the situation. I looked up and saw that the rail on which I had been leaning had come away on one side and that I had had a miraculous escape from certain death.

And now what must I do? One false move and I could go hurtling down. I must remain where I was and hope to attract someone's attention. Few people came to Dead Man's Leap and even if they did they would not know I was here clinging to the hillside bush.

I shouted but my voice echoed back to me. I could feel pains in my legs and arms. My hands were badly grazed and I knew I should certainly be bruised all over. I felt faint but that was the last thing I must do. I must concentrate on clinging to the bush.

I shall never forget that terrible ordeal and how Esmeralda was my savior. But it was several hours before she missed me and then she immediately thought of Dead Man's Leap. What else she thought I was aware of, although she didn't mention it. She sent two of the grooms to look for me there and when they could not find me and noticed the broken rail they approached the place from below and that was how I was discovered clinging to the bush.

To bring me down was not an easy matter. Two expert climbers from the nearby town came with special equipment; there were quite a lot of spectators and my rescue was reported in the press. There was a piece about the danger of Dead Man's Leap and how the rail had apparently been faulty although it had been put up not very long before. Greater protection was needed and something would have to be done about it.

Esmeralda nursed me for three days. That was all I needed to get over the shock and my bruises and abrasions.

The fact that Philip was reputed to have killed himself raised certain speculation as to what had happened to me. No one stressed this, but it was there.

We could not stay in the country forever and Cousin Agatha recalled us.

I felt a quiver of alarm when I entered the house and was confronted by her. Her expression was one of mingled exasperation and veiled triumph: exasperation because I had managed to get myself "talked about," as she put it, through this unfortunate affair on the hill, veiled triumph because although she did deplore the fact that a member of her family had failed to climb into the Carrington oligarchy, yet at the same time she was gratified because after all the "tumult and the shouting" I had failed and had had to come back to the old familiar position of Poor Relation to be victimized at her will.

I went to Finlay Square and looked at the house. It was up for sale again but nothing would have induced me to go in. I wondered whether what had happened would affect its sale, because it had been mentioned as the future home of Philip and me. People might think it unlucky. That was, after all, how legends became attached to places.

As I stood in the square looking at it, it seemed as though the house mocked me. I had had the fanciful notion that it had never wanted me and had warned me to keep away; and I had failed to heed that warning while, without doubt, being aware of it.

I did not go out very much. The Carringtons avoided me. I supposed the very sight of me would be painful to them, and moreover, they were in mourning and did not entertain. When people came to the house Cousin Agatha, who was as completely indifferent to my feelings as she had ever been, suggested I keep out of the way. "We don't want all that gossip starting up again," she said with an unpleasant laugh. "It's most embarrassing."

Frustrated and unhappy, I lived from day to day, but I knew that the state of affairs would not go on.

I was right. Cousin Agatha summoned me to her sitting room.

As I stood before her she looked at me with distaste. My brief glory was over and I had sunk back into the role of Poor Relation.

"I suppose," she said, "it will take us a long time to live down this very unfortunate affair. Of course I never really believed that marriage would take place. I always thought something would happen to prevent it. If I had had my way ..." She shook her head, implying that she would never have given her consent to the marriage; perhaps she would have forced Philip to take Esmeralda.

She sighed. I had lost my spirit and made no comment. I no longer felt the irresistible desire to defy her.

"However, every cloud has a silver lining, they say, and it seems that in your case this may be so." I looked at her in astonishment and she gave me a wintry smile. I might have known her pleasure would be my pain.

"Mrs. Oman Lemming had decided to employ someone else but had not completed her search for the right person. Now that you are in need of a post she has decided in her kindness that she will ignore convention and give you a chance."

"Oh no," I protested.

"Yes. I know it is generous of her. All that fuss in the papers. Why, one might say you are a marked woman. However, she is of the opinion that in due course this will be forgotten and that it may have had a salutory effect upon you. I had to be honest with her and therefore considered it my duty to inform her that you could at times be pert and that your position in this family—and your connection with us—had given you certain ideas. Mr. Loring being absurdly tolerant—in fact, I have so often to restrain him—did not wish you to be made aware of your position... ."

"So you disobeyed him," I could not resist saying.

"I do not understand. I trust you are not being pert again, Ellen. One in your position should be especially contrite."