••••••••• With the vibration of a piercing shriek still ringing through my brain, I jumped out of bed and to the window at a bound.
Where do the people come from at such moments? I could not have been more than a couple of seconds, but already there were half-a-dozen collected round outside.
Ugh! it was too ghastly. There on the horrid spiked railings twenty feet below
I turned sick and faint, and I, at the moment, had not the nerve even to look at what a desperate woman had dared to do.
They lifted her off, and put her gently down on the cold flags in the grey, early morning. They reverently straightened her limbs, and closed her eyes, and drew back her dabbled black hair; and presently they carried her in.
For weeks after, no matter how muddy the road might be, people stepped off the path to avoid crossing those stains.
It must have been terribly distressing to the people in the house. They left almost immediately; but I saw the white-haired lady only yesterday at Paddington. She was talking to a very pretty girl, and she looked as nice and sympathetic as ever.
As for the house, it is still empty. Such houses do not readily let.
Bloomsbury, 1894.
THE END
