to take my glove and rub
my window. There, too, was a little speck on the glass. For all my
rubbing it remained. And then the spasm went through me; I crooked my
arm and plucked at the middle of my back. My skin, too, felt like the
damp chicken's skin in the poulterer's shop-window; one spot between the
shoulders itched and irritated, felt clammy, felt raw. Could I reach it?
Surreptitiously I tried. She saw me. A smile of infinite irony, infinite
sorrow, flitted and faded from her face. But she had communicated,
shared her secret, passed her poison; she would speak no more. Leaning
back in my corner, shielding my eyes from her eyes, seeing only the
slopes and hollows, greys and purples, of the winter's landscape, I read
her message, deciphered her secret, reading it beneath her gaze.

Hilda's the sister-in-law. Hilda? Hilda? Hilda Marsh--Hilda the
blooming, the full bosomed, the matronly. Hilda stands at the door as
the cab draws up, holding a coin. "Poor Minnie, more of a grasshopper
than ever--old cloak she had last year. Well, well, with two children
these days one can't do more. No, Minnie, I've got it; here you are,
cabby--none of your ways with me. Come in, Minnie. Oh, I could carry
_you_, let alone your basket!" So they go into the dining-room. "Aunt
Minnie, children."

Slowly the knives and forks sink from the upright. Down they get (Bob
and Barbara), hold out hands stiffly; back again to their chairs,
staring between the resumed mouthfuls. [But this we'll skip; ornaments,
curtains, trefoil china plate, yellow oblongs of cheese, white squares
of biscuit--skip--oh, but wait! Halfway through luncheon one of those
shivers; Bob stares at her, spoon in mouth. "Get on with your pudding,
Bob;" but Hilda disapproves. "Why _should_ she twitch?" Skip, skip, till
we reach the landing on the upper floor; stairs brass-bound; linoleum
worn; oh, yes! little bedroom looking out over the roofs of
Eastbourne--zigzagging roofs like the spines of caterpillars, this way,
that way, striped red and yellow, with blue-black slating]. Now, Minnie,
the door's shut; Hilda heavily descends to the basement; you unstrap the
straps of your basket, lay on the bed a meagre nightgown, stand side by
side furred felt slippers. The looking-glass--no, you avoid the
looking-glass. Some methodical disposition of hat-pins. Perhaps the
shell box has something in it? You shake it; it's the pearl stud there
was last year--that's all. And then the sniff, t