vividly before her.
'Grierson's won it! You've let that upstart brat beat you. It wouldna have mattered so much if it had been anybody else but Grierson the son o' that measly swine. And after all I've talked about ye winnin' it. It's damnable! Damnable, I tell ye! You senseless idiot after the way I've slaved with ye, keepin' ye at it for all I was worth! God! I canna thole it. I'll wring that thin neck o' yours for ye.'
She sank deeper into her chair, shrinking from his invisible presence, her eyes still horrified, but cowering too, as though he advanced upon her with his huge open hands. Still, she remained motionless; even her lips did not move, but she heard herself cry feebly:
'I did my best, Father. I could do no more. Don't touch me, Father.'
'Your best,' he hissed. 'Your best wasna good enough to beat Grierson. You that swore ye had the Latta in your pocket! I've got to sit down under another insult because of ye. I'll pay ye. I told ye it would be the pity of ye if ye failed.'
'No! No! Father,' she whispered. 'I didn't mean to fail. I'll not do it again I promise you! You know I've always been the top of the class. I've always been your own Nessie. You wouldna hurt a wee thing like me. Ill do better next time.'
'There'll be no next time for you,' he shouted at her. 'I’ll… I'll throttle ye for what you've done to me.'
As he rushed upon her, she saw that he was going to kill her and, while she shrieked, closing her eyes in a frantic, unbelievable terror, the encircling band that had bound her brain for the last weary months of her study snapped suddenly and gave to her a calm and perfect peace. The tightness around her head dissolved, she was unloosed from the bonds that had confined her, her fear vanished and she was free. She opened her eyes, saw that her father was no longer there, and smiled an easy, amused smile which played over her mobile features like ripples of light and passed insensibly into a high, snickering laugh. Though her laughter was not loud, it moved her like a paroxysm, making the tears roll down her cheeks and shaking her thin body with its utter abandon. She laughed for a long time, then, as suddenly as her mirth had begun it ceased, her tears dried instantly, and her face assumed a wise, crafty expression like a gigantic magnification of that slight artfulness which it had worn when she stood thinking in the parlour. Now, however, clearly guided by a force within her, she did not think; she was above the necessity for thought. Pressing her lips into a prim line, she laid the letter, which had all this time remained within her grasp, carefully upon the table like a precious thing, and rising from her chair, stood casting her gaze up and down, moving her head like a nodding doll. When the nodding ceased, a smile, transient this time, flickered across her face and whispering softly, encouragingly to herself, 'What ye do. ye maun do well, Nessie, dear', she turned and went tiptoeing out of the room. She ascended the stairs with the same silent and extravagant caution, paused in a listening attitude upon the landing, then, reassured, went mincing into her room. There, without hesitation, she advanced to the basin and ewer, poured out some cold water and began carefully to wash her face and hands. When she had washed meticulously, she dried herself, shining her pale features to a high polish by her assiduous application of the towel; then, taking off her old, grey beige dress she took from her drawer the clean cashmere frock which was her best. This apparently did not now wholly please her, for she shook her head and murmured:
'That's not pretty enough for ye, Nessie dear. Not near pretty enough for ye now!' Still, she put it on with the same unhurried precision and her face lightened again as she lifted her hands to her hair. As she unplaited it and brushed it quickly with long, rapid strokes, she whispered from time to time softly, approvingly, 'My bonnie hair! My bonnie, bonnie hair!' Satisfied at last with the fine, golden sheen which her brushing had produced, she stood before the mirror and regarded herself with a far-away, enigmatical smile; then, taking her only adornment, a small string of coral beads, once given her by Mamma to compensate for Matthew's forgetfulness, she made as though to place them around her neck, when suddenly she withdrew the hand that held them. 'They're gey and sharp, these beads,' she murmured and laid them back gently upon her table.
Without further loss of time she marched softly out of her room, descended the stairs, and in the hall put on her serge jacket and her straw hat with the brave, new, satin ribbon that Mary had bought and sewn for her. She was now dressed completely for the street in her best dressed, indeed, as she had been on the day of the examination. But she did not go out of the house; instead, she slid stealthily back into the kitchen.
Here her actions quickened. Taking hold of one of the heavy wooden chairs, she moved it accurately into the centre of the room, then turned to her heaped books upon the dresser and transferred these to the chair, making a neat, firm pile which she surveyed with a pleased expression, adjusting some slight deviations from the regular symmetry of the heap with light, fastidious touches of her fingers. 'That's a real neat job, my dear,' she murmured contentedly. 'You're a woman that would have worked well in the house.' Even as she spoke, she moved backwards from the chair, still admiring her handiwork, but when she reached the door she turned and slipped lightly into the scullery. Here she bent and rummaged in the clothes basket at the window, then straightening up with an exclamation of triumph, she returned to the kitchen, bearing something in her hand. It was a short length of clothes line. Now her movements grew even more rapid. Her nimble fingers worked feverishly with one end of the thin rope, she leaped on the chair and, standing upon the piled books, corded the other end over the iron hook of the pulley on the ceiling. Then, without descending from the chair, she picked up the letter from the table and pinned it upon her bosom, muttering as she did so, 'First prize, Nessie! What a pity it's not a red card.'
Finally she inserted her neck delicately into the noose which she had fashioned, taking heed that she did not disarrange her hat and, passing the rope carefully under the mane of her hair, tightened it and was ready. She stood gaily poised upon the elevation of the books like a child perched upon a sand castle, her gaze directed eagerly out of the window across the foliage of the lilac tree. As her eyes sought the distant sky beyond, her foot, resting upon the back of the chair, pushed the support from beneath her, and she fell. The hook in the ceiling wrenched violently upon the beam above, which still securely held it. The rope strained but did not break. She hung suspended, twitching like a marionette upon a string, while her body, elongating, seemed to stretch out desperately one dangling foot, straining to reach the floor yet failing by a single inch to reach it. The hat tilted grotesquely across her brow, her face darkened slowly as the cord bit into her thin, white neck; her eyes, that were
placating, pleading even, and blue like speedwells, clouded with pain, with a faint wonder, then slowly glazed; her lips purpled, thickened, and fell apart; her small jaw dropped, a thin stream of froth ran silently across her chin. To and fro she oscillated gently, swinging in the room in a silence broken only by the faint flutter of the lilac leaves against the window panes, until, at last, her body quivered faintly and was still.
The house was silent as with the silence of consummation, but after a long hush the sound was heard of some person stirring above and slowly, hdtingly, descending the stairs. At length the kitchen door opened and Grandma Brodie came into the room. Drawn from her room by the approach of another meal time and the desire to make herself some especially soft toast, she now tottered forward, her head lowered, totally unobservant, until she blundered against the body.
'Teh! Teh! Where am I going?' she mumbled, as she recoiled, mazedly looking upwards out of her dim eyes at the hanging figure which the thrust of her arm had once more set in motion and which now swung lightly against her. Her aged face puckered incredulously as she peered, fell suddenly agape and, as the body of the dead girl again touched her, she staggered back and screamed.
'Oh! God in Heaven! What what is't! She's she's ' Another scream rent her! Mouthing incoherently, she turned, shambled from the room, and flinging open the front door, stumbled headlong from the house.
Her agitated gait had taken her through the courtyard and into the roadway when, turning to continue her flight, she collided with and almost fell into the arms of Mary, who gazed at her in some distress and cried:
'What's the matter, Grandma? Are you ill?'
The old woman looked at her, her face working, her sunken lips twitching, her tongue speechless.
'What's wrong with you, Grandma?' repeated Mary in amazement. 'Are you not well?'
'There! In there!' stuttered the other, pointing her stark hand wildly to the house. 'Nessie! Nessie's in there! She's she's hangit herself in the kitchen.'
Mary's glance leaped to the house, observed the open door; with a stricken cry she rushed past the old woman, and, still holding the white box of headache powders in her hand, flung herself up the steps, along the lobby, and into the kitchen.
'Oh! God!' she cried. 'My Nessie!' She dropped the box she carried, tore out the drawer of the dresser, and, snatching a knife, turned and hacked furiously at the tense rope. In a second this parted and the warm body of Nessie sagged soundlessly against her and trailed upon the floor.
'Oh! God!' she cried again. 'Spare her to me. We've only got each other left. Don't let her die!' Flinging her
