A startled linnet fled from the whirring blades towards the rose-garden.
The gardener bent to the handles of the machine and walked slowly along the bank scattering the short-tipped grass and the pin- point daisy-heads.
The smell of the sweet warm grass came towards me on the air, and the sun shone down upon me full and strong from out of the white mist.
I whistled for Jasper but he did not come.
Perhaps he had followed Maxim when he went down to the beach.
I glanced at my watch.
It was after half past twelve, nearly twenty to one.
This time yesterday Maxim and I were standing with Frank in the little garden in front of his house, waiting for his housekeeper to serve lunch.
Twenty-four hours ago.
They were teasing me, baiting me about my dress.
'You'll both get the surprise of your lives,' I had said.
I felt sick with shame at the memory of my words.
And then I realised for the first time that Maxim had not gone away as I had feared.
The voice I had heard on the terrace was calm and practical.
The voice I knew.
Not the voice of last night when I stood at the head of the stairs.
Maxim had not gone away.
He was down there in the cove somewhere.
He was himself, normal and sane.
He had just been for a walk, as Frank had said.
He had been on the headland, he had seen the ship closing in towards the shore.
All my fears were without foundation.
Maxim was safe.
Maxim was all right.
I had just experienced something that was degrading and horrible and mad, something that I did not fully understand even now, that I had no wish to remember, that I wanted to bury for ever more deep in the shadows of my mind with old forgotten terrors of childhood; but even this did not matter as long as Maxim was all right.
Then I, too, went down the steep twisting path through the dark woods to the beach below.
The fog had almost gone, and when I came to the cove I could see the ship at once, lying about two miles offshore with her bows pointed towards the cliffs.
I went along the breakwater and stood at the end of it, leaning against the rounded wall.
There was a crowd of people on the cliffs already who must have walked along the coastguard path from Kerrith.
The cliffs and the headland were part of Manderley, but the public had always used the right-of-way along the cliffs.
Some of them were scrambling down the cliff face to get a closer view of the stranded ship. She lay at an awkward angle, her stern tilted, and there were a number of rowing-boats already pulling round her.
The lifeboat was standing off.
I saw someone stand up in her and shout through a megaphone.
I could not hear what he was saying.
It was still misty out in the bay, and I could not see the horizon.
Another motor boat chugged into the light with some men aboard.
The motor boat was dark grey.
I could see someone in uniform.
That would be the harbour-master from Kerrith, and the Lloyd's agent with him.
Another motor boat followed, a party of holiday-makers from Kerrith aboard.
They circled round and round the stranded steamer chatting excitedly.
I could hear their voices echoing across the still water.
I left the breakwater and the cove and climbed up the path over the cliffs towards the rest of the people.
I did not see Maxim anywhere.
Frank was there, talking to one of the coastguards.
I hung back when I saw him, momentarily embarrassed.
Barely an hour ago I had been crying to him, down the telephone.
I was not sure what I ought to do.
He saw me at once and waved his hand.
I went over to him and the coastguard.