gaze into the darkness that is made by my palms. There is a silence. It lengthens. Mrs Sucksby leans closer.
''Dear girl,'' she murmurs. ''Won''t you say a word to us?'' She touches my hair. Still I will not speak or move. Her hand falls. ''I can see this news''ve dashed your spirits, rather,'' she says. Perhaps she gestures then to Richard, for he comes and squats before me.
''You understand, Maud,'' he says, trying to see about my fingers, ''what Mrs Sucksby has told you? One baby becomes another. Your mother was not your mother, your uncle not your uncle. Your life was not the life that you were meant to live, but Sue''s; and Sue lived yours ..."
They say that dying men see, played before their eyes with impossible swiftness, the show of their lives. As Richard speaks, I see mine: the madhouse, my baton of wood, the gripping gowns of Briar, the string of beads, my uncle''s naked eyes, the books, the books ... The show flickers and is gone, is lost and useless, like the gleam of a coin in murky water. I shudder, and Richard sighs. Mrs Sucksby shakes her head and tuts. But, when I show them my face they both start back. I am not weeping, as they suppose. I am laughing—I am gripped with a terrible laughter-—and my look must be ghastly.
''Oh, but this,'' I think I say, ''is perfect! This is all I have longed for! Why do you stare? What are you gazing at? Do you suppose a girl is sitting here? That girl is lost! She has been drowned! She is lying, fathoms deep. Do you think she has arms and legs, with flesh and cloth upon them? Do you think she has hair? She has only bones, stripped white! She is as white as a page of paper! She is a book, from which the words have peeled and drifted—''