"That was the last weekend Bee and Giles ever spent at Manderley,' said Maxim.
'I never asked them alone again.
They came officially, to garden parties, and dances.
Bee never said a word to me or I to her.
But I think she guessed my life, I think she knew.
Even as Frank did.
Rebecca grew cunning again.
Her behaviour was faultless, outwardly.
But if I happened to be away when she was here at Manderley I could never be certain what might happen.
There had been Frank, and Giles.
She might get hold of one of the workmen on the estate, someone from Kerrith, anyone… And then the bomb would have to fall.
The gossip, the publicity I dreaded.'
It seemed to me I stood again by the cottage in the woods, and I heard the drip-drip of the rain upon the roof.
I saw the dust on the model ships, the rat holes on the divan.
I saw Ben with his poor staring idiot's eyes.
'You'll not put me to the asylum, will you?'
And I thought of the dark steep path through the woods, and how, if a woman stood there behind the trees, her evening dress would rustle in the thin night breeze.
'She had a cousin,' said Maxim slowly, 'a fellow who had been abroad, and was living in England again.
He took to coming here, if ever I was away.
Frank used to see him.
A fellow called Jack Favell.'
'I know him,' I said; 'he came here the day you went to London.'
'You saw him too?' said Maxim.
'Why didn't you tell me?
I heard it from Frank, who saw his car turn in at the lodge gates.'
'I did not like to,' I said,
'I thought it would remind you of Rebecca.'
'Remind me?' whispered Maxim.
'Oh, God, as if I needed reminding.'
He stared in front of him, breaking off from his story, and I wondered if he was thinking, as I was, of that flooded cabin beneath the waters in the bay.
'She used to have this fellow Favell down to the cottage,' said Maxim, 'she would tell the servants she was going to sail, and would not be back before the morning. Then she would spend the night down there with him.
Once again I warned her.
I said if I found him here, anywhere on the estate, I'd shoot him.
He had a black, filthy record… The very thought of him walking about the woods in Manderley, in places like the Happy Valley, made me mad.
I told her I would not stand for it.
She shrugged her shoulders.
She forgot to blaspheme.
And I noticed she was looking paler than usual, nervy, rather haggard.
I wondered then what the hell would happen to her when she began to look old, feel old. Things drifted on.
Nothing very much happened.
Then one day she went up to London, and came back again the same day, which she did not do as a rule.
I did not expect her.
I dined that night with Frank at his house, we had a lot of work on at the time.'
He was speaking now in short, jerky sentences.
I had his hands very tightly between my two hands.
'I came back after dinner, about half past ten, and I saw her scarf and gloves lying on a chair in the hall.
I wondered what the devil she had come back for.
I went into the morning-room, but she was not there.
I guessed she had gone off there then, down to the cove.
And I knew then I could not stand this life of lies and filth and deceit any longer.