Hard Line Breaks and Differences

Spec
1

Okay, doing some cleanup with hard line breaks, and reviewed the following Markdown and their HTML output:

abc
\
def

produces

<p>abc
<br />
def</p>

but the cousin of the \ at the end <space><space>:

abc
  
def

produces

<p>abc</p>
<p>def</p>

Now, in my head, I know that a blank line, including one with 2+ spaces, produces the end of a paragraph, hence the difference. But when I looked over the specification, I wasn’t happy with the wording under Head Line Breaks, though I really couldn’t put my finger on it.

Perhaps it was because there wasn’t an explicit “if done at start, will be interpreted as blank line” clause in that section?

Ideas?