Maxim came back into the library.
'It's begun,' he said slowly.
'What do you mean?
What's happened?' I said, grown suddenly cold.
'It was a reporter,' he said, 'the fellow from the County Chronicle.
Was it true, he said, that the boat belonging to the late Mrs de Winter had been found.'
'What did you say?'
'I said, Yes, a boat had been found, but that was all we know.
It might not be her boat at all.'
'Was that all he said?'
'No.
He asked if I could confirm the rumour that a body had been found in the cabin.'
'No!'
'Yes.
Someone must have been talking.
Not Searle, I know that.
The diver, one of his friends.
You can't stop these people.
The whole story will be all over Kerrith by breakfast time tomorrow.'
'What did you say, about the body?'
'I said I did not know.
I had no statement to make.
And I should be obliged if he did not ring me up again.'
'You will irritate them.
You will have them against you.'
'I can't help that.
I don't make statements to newspapers.
I won't have those fellows ringing up and asking questions.'
'We might want them on our side,' I said.
'If it comes to fighting, I'll fight alone,' he said.
'I don't want a newspaper behind me.'
'The reporter will ring up someone else,' I said.
'He will get on to Colonel Julyan or Captain Searle.'
'He won't get much change out of them,' said Maxim.
'If only we could do something,' I said, 'all these hours ahead of us, and we sit here, idle, waiting for tomorrow morning.'
'There's nothing we can do,' said Maxim.
We went on sitting in the library.
Maxim picked up a book but I know he did not read.
Now and again I saw him lift his head and listen, as though he heard the telephone again.
But it did not ring again.
No one disturbed us.
We dressed for dinner as usual.
It seemed incredible to me that this time last night I had been putting on my white dress, sitting before the mirror at my dressing-table, arranging the curled wig.
It was like an old forgotten nightmare, something remembered months afterwards with doubt and disbelief.
We had dinner.
Frith served us, returned from his afternoon.
His face was solemn, expressionless.
I wondered if he had been in Kerrith, if he had heard anything.
After dinner we went back again to the library.
We did not talk much.