Clare heard herself answering mechanically.
Yes.
They had just parted.
No, Lady Lee's manner had been quite normal.
One of the group interposed the information that the lady was laughing and waving her hand.
A terribly dangerous place - there ought to be a railing along the path.
The vicar's voice rose again.
"An accident - yes, clearly an accident."
And then suddenly Clare laughed - a hoarse, raucous laugh that echoed along the cliff.
"That's a damned lie," she said. "I killed her."
She felt someone patting her shoulder, a voice spoke soothingly.
"There, there.
It's all right.
You'll be all right presently."
But Clare was not all right presently.
She was never all right again.
She persisted in the delusion - certainly a delusion, since at least eight persons had witnessed the scene - that she had killed Vivien Lee.
She was very miserable till Nurse Lauriston came to take charge.
Nurse Lauriston was very successful with mental cases.
"Humor them, poor things," she would say comfortably.
So she told Clare that she was a wardress from Pentonville Prison.
Clare's sentence, she said, had been commuted to penal servitude for life.
A room was fitted up as a cell.
"And now, I think, we shall be quite happy and comfortable," said Nurse Lauriston to the doctor. "Round-bladed knives if you like, doctor, but I don't think there's the least fear of suicide.
She's not the type.
Too self-centered.
Funny how those are often the ones who go over the edge most easily."