“What does it mean?”
She read the words aloud, then thought a moment.
“Remember only the happy hours,” she said slowly. She gave it back to me, and the letter from Rainaldi too.
“Did she not show it you before?” she asked.
“No,” I answered.
We looked at one another in silence for a moment.
Then Louise said,
“Can we have misjudged her, do you think?
About the poison?
You see yourself, there is not any proof.” “There never will be any proof,” I said. “Not now. Not ever.”
I put the drawing back upon the bureau, and the letter too.
“If there is no proof,” said Louise, “you cannot condemn her.
She may be innocent.
She may be guilty.
You can do nothing.
If she be innocent, and you accused her, you could never forgive yourself.
You would be guilty then, not her at all.
Let’s leave this room, and go down into the drawing room.
I wish now we had not meddled with her things.”
I stood by the open window of the boudoir staring out across the lawn.
“Is she there?” asked Louise.
“No,” I said, “she has been gone nearly half an hour, and has not returned.”
Louise crossed the room and stood by my side.
She looked into my face.
“Why is your voice so strange?” she said.
“Why do you keep your eyes fixed there, on those steps leading to the terrace walk?
Is anything the matter?”
I brushed her aside and went towards the door.
“Do you know the bell-rope on the landing beneath the belfry,” I said to her, “the one that is used at noon to summon the men to dinner?
Go now, and pull it hard.”
She looked at me, puzzled.
“What for?” she asked.
“Because it is Sunday,” I said, “and everyone is out, or sleeping, or scattered somewhere; and I may need help.”
“Help?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I said, “there may have been an accident, to Rachel.”
Louise stared at me.
Her eyes, so blue and candid, searched my face.
“What have you done?” she said; and apprehension came upon her, conviction too.
I turned, and left the room.
I ran downstairs, and out across the lawn and up the path to the terrace walk.
There was no sign of Rachel.
Near to the stones and mortar and the stack of timber above the sunken garden the two dogs were standing.
One of them, the younger, came towards me.
The other stayed where he was, close to the heap of mortar.
I saw her footsteps in the sand and lime, and her sunshade, still open, tipped upon its side.
Suddenly the bell rang out from the clock-tower on the house.
It went on and on, and the day being still and calm the sound of it must have traveled across the field, down to the sea, so that men fishing in the bay would have heard it too.
I came to the edge of the wall above the sunken garden, and saw where the men had started work upon the bridge.
Part of the bridge still remained and hung suspended, grotesque and horrible, like a swinging ladder.
The rest had fallen to the depths below.