The Well of Loneliness

The tragic deaths of Barbara and Jamie cast a gloom over everyone who had known them, but especially over Mary and Stephen. Again and again Stephen blamed herself for having left Jamie on that fatal evening; if she had only insisted upon staying, the tragedy might never have happened, she might somehow have been able to impart to the girl the courage and strength to go on living. But great as the shock undoubtedly was to Stephen, to Mary it was even greater, for together with her very natural grief, was a new and quite unexpected emotion, the emotion of fear. She was suddenly afraid, and now this fear looked out of her eyes and crept into her voice when she spoke of Jamie.

"To end in that way, to have killed herself; Stephen, it's so awful that such things can happen -- they were like you and me. " And then she would go over every sorrowful detail of Barbara's last illness, every detail of their finding of Jamie's body.