"I know I am," I said.

Whereupon she laughed again, finished the strawberry, and changed
the conversation.

There seemed to be no foreshadowing of tragedy in that. I had
known her (like many of her kind) to proclaim the rottenness of
the Universe when she was off her stroke at golf, or when a
favourite young man did not appear at a dance. I attributed no
importance to it. But the next day I remembered. What was she
doing after half-past ten o'clock, when she had bidden her father
and mother goodnight, on the steep and lonely bank of the canal,
about a mile and a half away? No one had seen her leave the house.
No one, apparently, had seen her walking through the town. Nothing
was known of her until dawn when they found her body by the lock
gate. She had been dead some hours. It was a mysterious affair,
upon which no light was thrown at the inquest. No one save myself
had observed any sign of depression, and her half-bantering talk
with me was trivial enough. No one could adduce a reason for her
midnight walk on the tow-path. The obvious question arose. Whom
had she gone forth to meet? What man? There was not a man in the
neighbourhood with whom her name could be particularly associated.
Generally, it could be associated with a score or so. The modern
young girl of her position and upbringing has a drove of young
male intimates. With one she rides, with another she golfs, with
another she dances a two-step, with another she Bostons; she will
let Tom read poetry to her, although, as she expresses it, "he
bores her stiff," because her sex responds to the tribute; she
plays lady patroness to Dick, and tries to intrigue him into a
soft job; and as for Harry she goes on telling him month after