When Mr Francis came, Harold had been buried for nearly two days.
He was only a boy.
I could do anything I wanted with him.
I told him I'd found the parang in Harold's hand and there was no doubt he'd killed himself in an attack of delirium tremens.
I showed him the empty bottle.
The servants said he'd been drinking hard ever since I left to go to the sea.
I told the same story at Kuala Solor.
Everyone was very kind to me, and the government granted me a pension.'
For a little while nobody spoke.
At last Mr Skinner gathered himself together.
'I am a member of the legal profession. I'm a solicitor.
I have certain duties.
We've always had a most respectable practice.
You've put me in a monstrous position.'
He fumbled, searching for the phrases that played at hide and seek in his scattered wits.
Millicent looked at him with scorn.
'What are you going to do about it?'
'It was murder, that's what it was; do you think I can possibly connive at it?'
'Don't talk nonsense, father,' said Kathleen sharply.
'You can't give up your own daughter.'
'You've put me in a monstrous position,' he repeated.
Millicent shrugged her shoulders again.
'You made me tell you.
And I've borne it long enough by myself.
It was time that all of you bore it too.'
At that moment the door was opened by the maid.
'Davis has brought the car round, sir,' she said.
Kathleen had the presence of mind to say something, and the maid withdrew.
'We'd better be starting,' said Millicent.
'I can't go to the party now,' cried Mrs Skinner, with horror.
'I'm far too upset.
How can we face the Heywoods?
And the Bishop will want to be introduced to you.'
Millicent made a gesture of indifference.
Her eyes held their ironical expression.
'We must go, mother,' said Kathleen.
'It would look so funny if we stayed away.'
She turned on Millicent furiously.
'Oh, I think the whole thing is such frightfully bad form.'
Mrs Skinner looked helplessly at her husband.
He went to her and gave her his hand to help her up from the sofa.
'I'm afraid we must go, mother,' he said.
'And me with the ospreys in my toque that Harold gave me with his own hands,' she moaned.
He led her out of the room, Kathleen followed close on their heels, and a step or two behind came Millicent.
'You'll get used to it, you know,' she said quietly.
'At first I thought of it all the time, but now I forget it for two or three days together.
It's not as if there was any danger.'
They did not answer.
They walked through the hall and out of the front door.
The three ladies got into the back of the car and Mr Skinner seated himself beside the driver.