Anyhow, I am
convinced that the sight of Mr Bagshawe and the thought that Mr
Bagshawe--for she knew that unpleasant and toadlike
personality--the thought that Mr Bagshawe would almost certainly
reveal to me that he had caught her coming out of Jimmy's
bedroom at five o'clock in the morning on the 4th of August,
1900--that was the determining influence in her suicide. And no
doubt the effect of the date was too much for her superstitious
personality. She had been born on the 4th of August; she had
started to go round the world on the 4th of August; she had
become a low fellow's mistress on the 4th of August. On the same
day of the year she had married me; on that 4th she had lost
Edward's love, and Bagshawe had appeared like a sinister
omen--like a grin on the face of Fate. It was the last straw. She ran
upstairs, arranged herself decoratively upon her bed--she was a
sweetly pretty woman with smooth pink and white cheeks, long
hair, the eyelashes falling like a tiny curtain on her cheeks. She
drank the little phial of prussic acid and there she lay.--Oh,
extremely charming and clear-cut--looking with a puzzled
expression at the electric-light bulb that hung from the ceiling, or
perhaps through it, to the stars above.
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