Giving out: it is so much harder
work than taking in, and it is the work for us older people always.

Percy passed me the _Haste_, pointing to a column on the front page. That
had been part of his business last night, to see that the _Haste_ had a
good column about it. The news editor had turned out a column about a
Bolshevik advance on the Dvina to make room for it, and it was side by
side with the Rectory Oil Mystery, the German Invasion (dumped goods, of
course), the Glasgow Trades' Union Congress, the French Protest about
Syria, Woman's Mysterious Disappearance, and a Tarring and Feathering
Court Martial. The heading was 'Tragic Death of the Editor of the _Daily
Haste_,' and there followed not only a full report of the disaster, but
an account of Oliver's career, with one of those newspaper photographs
which do the original so little justice.

'Binney's been pretty sharp about it,' said Percy approvingly. 'Of
course, he had all the biographical facts stored.'

6

We went up by the 9.24, and went straight to Hampstead.

Quietly and sadly we entered that house of death. The maid, all
flustered and red-eyed with emotional unrest, told us that Jane was
upstairs, and Clare too. We went up the narrow stairs, now become so
tragic in their associations. On which step, I wondered, had he fallen,
and how far?

Jane came out of the drawing-room to meet us. She was pale, and looked as
if she hadn't slept, but composed, as she always is. I took her in my
arms and gave her a long kiss. Then her father kissed her, and smoothed
her hair, and patted her head as he used to do when she was a child, and
said, 'There, there, there, my poor little Babs. There, there, there.'

I led her into the drawing-room. I felt her calm was unnatural. 'Cry, my
darling,' I said. 'Have your cry out, and you will feel better.'

'Shall I?' she said. 'I don't think so, mother. Crying doesn't make me
feel better, ever. It makes my head ache.'

I thought of Tennyson's young war widow and the nurse of ninety years,
and only wished it could have been six months later, so that I could have
set Jane's child upon her knee.

'When you feel you can, my darling,' I said, wiping my eyes, 'you must
tell me all about it. But not before you want to.'

'There isn't much to tell,' she answered quietly, still without tears.
'He fell down the stairs backwards. That's all.'

'Did you ... see him, darling?'

She hesitated a moment, then said 'Yes. I saw him