I'll live the life of a country gentleman at last, with you and the children, and I'll teach young James to ride and to hawk.
How would you like that, eh?"
Still she did not answer, but went on staring in front of her.
"There's always been something baleful about Navron," he said, "I remember thinking so as a boy.
I never felt well here: the, air is too soft.
It doesn't suit me.
It doesn't suit you, either.
We'll go away as soon as this business is over and done with.
If only we could lay our hands on that damned spy of a servant, and hang 'em both at the same time.
God, when I think of the danger you were in, you know, trusting that fellow."
And he began to blow his nose again, shaking his head.
One of the spaniels came fawning up to her, licking her hands, and suddenly she remembered the furious barking of the night, the yapping, the excitement, and in a flash her darkened mind became alive again, awake and horribly aware.
Her heart beat loudly, for no reason, and the house, and the trees, and the figure of Harry sitting beside her took shape and form.
He was talking, and she knew now that every word he uttered might be of importance, and that she must miss nothing, for there were plans to make, and time itself was now of desperate value.
"Poor Rock must have outwitted the servant from the first," he was saying. "There were signs of the struggle in his room, you know, and a trail of blood leading along the passage, and then it stopped suddenly, and we found no trace of the fellow.
Somehow he must have got away, and perhaps have joined those other rascals on the ship, though I think it doubtful.
They must have used some part of the river time and again as a sneak-hole.
By thunder, Dona, if we'd only known."
He smote his fist in the palm of his hand, and then, remembering that Navron had been a house of death and that to talk loudly, or to swear, was to show irreverence towards the dead, he lowered his voice, and sighed, and said,
"Poor Rock.
I hardly know how we shall do without him, you know."
She spoke at last, her voice sounding strange to her own ears, because her words were careful, like a lesson learnt by heart.
"How was he caught?" she said, and the dog was licking her hand again, but she did not feel it.
"You mean that damned Frenchman?" said Harry, "well, we - we rather hoped you could tell us a bit about it, the first part, because you were with him, weren't you, in the salon there.
But I don't know, Dona, you seemed so stunned and strange when I asked you.
I said to Eustick and the others,
'Hell, no, she's been through too much,' and if you'd rather not tell me about it, well, that's all there is to it, you know."
She folded her hands on her lap and she said,
"He gave me back my earrings and then he went."
"Oh, well," said Harry, "if that was all. But then he must have come back, you know, and tried to follow you upstairs.
Perhaps you don't remember fainting there, on the passage by your room.
Anyway, Rock must have been there by then, and guessing what the scoundrel was after, threw himself on the fellow, and in the fight that followed - for your safety Dona, you must always remember that - he lost his life, dear staunch friend that he was."
Dona waited a moment, watching Harry's hand as he stroked the dog. "And then?" she said, looking away from him, across the lawn.
"Ah, the rest we owe to Rock too.
It was his plan, from the first.
He suggested it to Eustick and George Godolphin when we met them at Helston.
'Have your men posted on the beaches,' he said, 'and boats in readiness, and if there is a vessel hiding up the river, you'll get her as she comes down by night, on the top of the tide.'
But instead of getting the ship, we got the leader instead."
And he laughed, pulling at the dog's ears, and tickling his back.
"Yes, Duchess, we got the leader, and he'll hang for piracy and murder, won't he? And the people will sleep easy in their beds once more."
Dona heard herself saying sharply in a clear cold voice,
"Was he wounded at all? I don't understand."
"Wounded?
God bless me, no.
He'll hang without a scratch on him, and he'll know what it feels like.
The devilry up here had delayed him, you see, and those three other scoundrels, and they were making for a point below Helford to join their vessel in mid-river.
He must have told the rest of his crew to get the ship under way when he was up at the house.
God knows how they managed it, but they did.
When Eustick and the others got down to the point agreed upon, there was the ship in mid-stream, and the fellows swimming out to her, all but their leader, and he was standing on the beach, as cool as a blade of steel, fighting two of our people at once, while his men got away. He kept shouting over his shoulder to them in his damned lingo as they swam to the ship, and though the boats were launched from the beaches, as we arranged, they were too late to catch the scoundrels or the ship.
She sailed out of Helford with a roaring tide under her, and a fair wind on her quarter, and the Frenchman watched her go, and God damn it, he was laughing, Eustick said."