The wife of a British diplomat plunged to her death early yesterday from the roof of her Manhattan apartment in what police are calling an apparent suicide.

Catherine Hurd, 46, leaped from the building on East 84th Street at 4:27 a.m. and was pronounced dead at New York Hospital. No suicide note was found.

Hurd’s husband, Thomas, is a member of the British Mission to the United Nations.

Neighbors described Catherine Hurd as a happy mother of five who was to return home to England next week when her husband’s mission ended.