Beatrice, who had been bracing for a terrible, unresolvable conflict, was the first to speak. Her voice was a shaky, relieved whisper. "Suicide? She… she took her own life? What exactly happened, child? Tell me."
Nora, seeing the new path she had so brilliantly provided, clung to it as a drowning man clings to a rope. She pressed her face to the floor, her shoulders shaking with practiced, believable sobs. "That day," she wept, "I went to the dark room, just as you ordered, Dowager. I was bringing her the water and bread you mercifully provided."
She paused, as if gathering the strength to recount the horror. "It… it was so dark. I… I saw her. She had… she had smashed the water jar you sent. She was on the floor… she had used a sharp, broken piece… I tried to save her, I truly did! I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too late."
This part, at least, was a masterful lie, twisting the real, broken jar into a tool of self-destruction.
