“I said, ‘I believe that is the truth, but I never believed that you would dare to say so. You can’t—you can’t realize what you are doing. You can’t purchase your pleasure with the comfort and security and health and joy of two little babies who have never harmed you once in all their lives. You can’t!’
“She laughed that wicked, excited little laugh of hers again, and said through her teeth, ‘Oh, can’t I, though? Now get this straight too: I don’t care whether your precious little babies die in a gutter. Now, will you get out?’
“I couldn’t breathe. I felt exactly as though I were suffocating, but I said, ‘No. I am an old woman, Madeleine, but I will go on my knees to you to beg you not to ruin the lives of those two babies.’
“She said, ‘Oh, I’m sick to death of you and your babies and your melodramatics. For the last time, are you going to get out of this house or am I going to have to put you out?’
“She came so close to me that I could smell the horrid perfume she wore—gardenia, I think it was—something close and sweet and hateful. I took a step back and said, ‘You wouldn’t dare to touch me—you wouldn’t dare!’
“And then she did—she gave that dreadful, excited little laugh of hers and put both hands on my shoulders and pushed me, quite hard—so hard that I stumbled and went forward on my knees. I tried to catch myself, and dropped the bag and all the things in it fell out on the carpet. I knelt there staring down at them, with the blood roaring in my head and singing in my ears.
“Judge Carver, what is it in our blood and bones and flesh that rises shrieking its outrage in the weakest and meekest of us at the touch of hands laid violently on our rebellious flesh? I could hear it—I could hear it crying in my ears—and there on the flowered carpet just in reach of my hand something was shining. It was the little knife that I’d been using to cut the dead wood out so that the live roses would grow better. I knelt there staring at it. That story of how all their lives flash by drowning eyes—I always thought that was an old wives’ tale—no, that’s true, I think. I could see the rose garden with all the green leaves glossy on the big Silver Moon. … I could see Pat and Sue laughing on the terrace, with his arm across her shoulders and the sun in their eyes and the wind in their hair. … I could see the children’s blue smocks through the branches of the copper beech. … I stood up with the knife in my hand. …
“She screamed only once—not a very loud scream, either, but she caught at the table as she fell, and it made a dreadful crash. I heard someone laugh outside, quite loudly, and I leaned forward and blew out the lamp on the piano. There was someone coming up the front steps; I stood very still. A bell rang far back in the house, and then someone tried the door.
“I thought: ‘This is the end—they have known what has happened. If no one answers, they will batter down the door. But not till they batter down the door will I move one hairbreadth from where I stand—and not then.’
“After a moment I heard the feet going down the steps, then again on the gravel of the main drive, getting fainter and fainter. I waited for a moment longer, because I thought that I heard something moving in the bushes outside the window, but after a minute everything was perfectly still, and I went over to the window and shut it and pulled down the shade.
“I knew that I was in great danger, and that I must think very quickly—and act quickly too. I found the little flashlight almost immediately, and lit it, and pushed down the catch and put it beside me on the floor. I wanted to have both hands free, and I didn’t dare to take the time to light the lamp. I was afraid that the person who tried the door would come back. I had realized at once, of course, that if I took the jewels the murder would look like robbery—and I had to make sure that she was dead.
“That took only a minute; the rings came off quite easily, but the catch of the necklace caught, and I had to break the string. I knotted the things all into my handkerchief and put them into the bag, and the trowel and a ball of string that had fallen out, too, and the note, and a little silver box of candy that I kept for the children. There was the key to the front door too. I remembered that I must leave it in the lock as I went out. I used the flashlight to make sure that I wasn’t leaving anything, and I was—the knife was still lying there beside her.
“It’s curious—of all the things that happened that night, that’s the only one that I can’t account for. I don’t remember how it got there at all—whether I placed it there or whether I dropped it or whether it fell—that’s curious, don’t you think? Anyhow, I picked it up and wiped it off very carefully on one of her white lace frills and put it back in the bag. And then I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I knelt there, leaning forward against the cold steel of the little Franklin stove, feeling so mortally, so desperately sick that for a moment
