I went and stood in the hall by the front door. Jasper was drinking noisily from his bowl. He wagged his tail when he saw me and went on drinking. Then he loped towards me, and stood up, pawing at my dress. I kissed the top of his head and went and sat on the terrace. The moment of crisis had come, and I must face it. My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopeless sense of inferiority, must be conquered now and thrust aside. If I failed now I should fail forever. There would never be another chance. I prayed for courage in a blind despairing way, and dug my nails into my hands. I sat there for five minutes staring at the green lawns and the flower tubs on the terrace. I heard the sound of a car starting up in the drive. It must be Captain Searle. He had broken his news to Maxim and had gone. I got up from the terrace and went slowly through the hall to the library. I kept turning over in my pockets the winkles that Ben had given me. I clutched them tight in my hands.
Maxim was standing by the window. His back was turned to me. I waited by the door. Still he did not turn round. I took my hands out of my pockets and went and stood beside him. I reached out for his hand and laid it against my cheek. He did not say anything. He went on standing there.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, “so terribly, terribly sorry.” He did not answer. His hand was icy cold. I kissed the back of it, and then the fingers, one by one. “I don’t want you to bear this alone,” I said. “I want to share it with you. I’ve grown up, Maxim, in twenty-four hours. I’ll never be a child again.”
He put his arm round me and pulled me to him very close. My reserve was broken, and my shyness too. I stood there with my face against his shoulder. “You’ve forgiven me, haven’t you?” I said.
He spoke to me at last. “Forgiven you?” he said. “What have I got to forgive you for?”
“Last night,” I said; “you thought I did it on purpose.”
“Ah, that,” he said. “I’d forgotten. I was angry with you, wasn’t I?”
“Yes,” I said.
He did not say any more. He went on holding me close to his shoulder. “Maxim,” I said, “can’t we start all over again? Can’t we begin from today, and face things together? I don’t want you to love me, I won’t ask impossible things. I’ll be your friend and your companion, a sort of boy. I don’t ever want more than that.”
He took my face between his hands and looked at me. For the first time I saw how thin his face was, how lined and drawn. And there were great shadows beneath his eyes.
“How much do you love me?” he said.
I could not answer. I could only stare back at him, at his dark tortured eyes, and his pale drawn face.
“It’s too late, my darling, too late,” he said. “We’ve lost our little chance of happiness.”
“No, Maxim. No,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s all over now. The thing has happened.”
“What thing?” I said.
“The thing I’ve always foreseen. The thing I’ve dreamed about, day after day, night after night. We’re not meant for happiness, you and I.” He sat down on the window seat, and I knelt in front of him, my hands on his shoulders.
“What are you trying to tell me?” I said.
He put his hands over mine and looked into my face. “Rebecca has won,” he said.
I stared at him, my heart beating strangely, my hands suddenly cold beneath his hands.
“Her shadow between us all the time,” he said. “Her damned shadow keeping us from one another. How could I hold you like this, my darling, my little love, with the fear always in my heart that this would happen? I remembered her eyes as she looked at me before she died. I remembered that slow treacherous smile. She knew this would happen even then. She knew she would win in the end.”
“Maxim,” I whispered, “what are you saying, what are you trying to tell me?”
“Her boat,” he said, “they’ve found it. The diver found it this afternoon.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know. Captain Searle came to tell me. You are thinking about the body, aren’t you, the body the diver found in the cabin?”
“Yes,” he said.
“It means she was not alone,” I said. “It means there was somebody sailing with Rebecca at the time. And you have to find out who it was. That’s it, isn’t it, Maxim?”
“No,” he said. “No, you don’t understand.”
“I want to share this with you, darling,” I said. “I want to help you.”