However, once the inquest is over you must both forget all about it.'
'Yes,' I said, 'yes, we must try to.'
'My car is here in the drive.
I wonder whether Crawley would like a lift.
Crawley?
I can drop you at your office if it's any use.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Frank.
He came and took my hand.
'I shall be seeing you again,' he said.
'Yes,' I said.
I did not look at him.
I was afraid he would understand my eyes.
I did not want him to know that I knew.
Maxim walked with them to the car.
When they had gone he came back to me on the terrace. He took my arm.
We stood looking down at the green lawns towards the sea and the beacon on the headland.
'It's going to be all right,' he said.
'I'm quite calm, quite confident.
You saw how Julyan was at lunch, and Frank.
There won't be any difficulty at the inquest.
It's going to be all right.'
I did not say anything.
I held his arm tightly.
'There was never any question of the body being someone unknown,' he said.
'What we saw was enough for Doctor Phillips even to make the identification alone without me.
It was straightforward, simple.
There was no trace of what I'd done.
The bullet had not touched the bone.'
A butterfly sped past us on the terrace, silly and inconsequent.
'You heard what they said,' he went on; 'they think she was trapped there, in the cabin.
The jury will believe that at the inquest too.
Phillips will tell them so.'
He paused.
Still I did not speak.
'I only mind for you,' he said.
'I don't regret anything else.
If it had to come all over again I should not do anything different.
I'm glad I killed Rebecca.
I shall never have any remorse for that, never, never.
But you. I can't forget what it has done to you.
I was looking at you, thinking of nothing else all through lunch.
It's gone for ever, that funny, young, lost look that I loved. It won't come back again.
I killed that too, when I told you about Rebecca… It's gone, in twenty-four hours. You are so much older…'
Chapter twenty-two
That evening, when Frith brought in the local paper, there were great headlines right across the top of the page. He brought the paper and laid it down on the table.
Maxim was not there; he had gone up early to change for dinner.
Frith stood a moment, waiting for me to say something, and it seemed to me stupid and insulting to ignore a matter that must mean so much to everyone in the house.
'This is a very dreadful thing, Frith,' I said.
'Yes, Madam; we are all most distressed outside,' he said.
'It's so sad for Mr de Winter,' I said, 'having to go through it all again.'