Beatrice was careful not to let the blow of Siegmund's death fall with
full impact upon her. As it were, she dodged it. She was afraid to meet
the accusation of the dead Siegmund, with the sacred jury of memories.
When the event summoned her to stand before the bench of her own soul's
understanding, she fled, leaving the verdict upon herself eternally
suspended.

When the neighbours had come, alarmed by her screaming, she had allowed
herself to be taken away from her own house into the home of a
neighbour. There the children were brought to her. There she wept, and
stared wildly about, as if by instinct seeking to cover her mind with
confusion. The good neighbour controlled matters in Siegmund's house,
sending for the police, helping to lay out the dead body. Before Vera
and Frank came home, and before Beatrice returned to her own place, the
bedroom of Siegmund was locked.

Beatrice avoided seeing the body of her husband; she gave him one swift
glance, blinded by excitement; she never saw him after his death. She
was equally careful to avoid thinking of him. Whenever her thoughts
wandered towards a consideration of how he must have felt, what his
inner life must have been, during the past six years, she felt herself
dilate with terror, and she hastened to invoke protection.

'The children!' she said to herself--'the children. I must live for the
children; I must think for the children.' This she did, and with much success. All her tears and her wildness rose
from terror and dismay rather than from grief. She managed to fend back
a grief that would probably have broken her. Vera was too
practical-minded, she had too severe a notion of what ought to be and
what ought not, ever to put herself in her father's place and try to
understand him. She concerned herself with judging him sorrowfully,
exonerating him in part because Helena, that other, was so much more to
blame. Frank, as a sentimentalist, wept over the situation, not over the
personae. The children were acutely distressed by the harassing
behaviour of the elders, and longed for a restoration of equanimity. By
common consent no word was spoken of Siegmund. As soon as possible after
the funeral Beatrice moved from South London to Harrow. The memory of
Siegmund began to fade rapidly.