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 dreamt 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.