brighter, she had tried to save from Edward. That was how she
figured it out to herself. She really thought that. . . . So Leonora
said patiently:

"Very well, just put it that I killed her and that it's a painful
subject. One does not like to think that one had killed someone.
Naturally not. I ought never to have brought her from India." And
that, indeed, is exactly how Leonora looked at it. It is stated a little
baldly, but Leonora was always a great one for bald statements.

What had happened on the day of our jaunt to the ancient city of
M---- had been this:

Leonora, who had been even then filled with pity and contrition for
the poor child, on returning to our hotel had gone straight to Mrs
Maidan's room. She had wanted just to pet her. And she had
perceived at first only, on the clear, round table covered with red
velvet, a letter addressed to her. It ran something like:

"Oh, Mrs Ashburnham, how could you have done it? I trusted you
so. You never talked to me about me and Edward, but I trusted
you. How could you buy me from my husband? I have just heard
how you have--in the hall they were talking about it, Edward and
the American lady. You paid the money for me to come here. Oh,
how could you? How could you? I am going straight back to
Bunny. . . ." Bunny was Mrs Maidan's husband.

And Leonora said that, as she went on reading the letter, she had,
without looking round her, a sense that that hotel room was
cleared, that there were no papers on the table, that there were no