'Yes. Maxim has asked me to.'
'No. You ought to stay with him.'
'Maxim told me to take you back to Manderley.'
He put his arm through mine and helped me to get up.
'Can you walk as far as the car or shall I bring it round?'
'I can walk.
But I'd much rather stay.
I want to wait for Maxim.'
'Maxim may be a long time.'
Why did he say that?
What did he mean?
Why didn't he look at me?
He took my arm and walked with me along the passage to the door, and so down the steps into the street.
Maxim may be a long time…
We did not speak.
We came to the little Morris car belonging to Frank.
He opened the door, and helped me in.
Then he got in himself and started up the engine.
We drove away from the cobbled market-place, through the empty town, and out on to the road to Kerrith.
'Why will they be a long time?
What are they going to do?'
'They may have to go over the evidence again.'
Frank looked straight in front of him along the hard white road.
'They've had all the evidence,' I said. "There's nothing more anyone can say.'
'You never know,' said Frank, 'the Coroner may put his questions in a different way.
Tabb has altered the whole business.
The Coroner will have to approach it now from another angle.'
'What angle?
How do you mean?'
'You heard the evidence?
You heard what Tabb said about the boat?
They won't believe in an accident any more.'
'It's absurd, Frank, it's ridiculous.
They should not listen to Tabb.
How can he tell, after all these months, how holes came to be in a boat?
What are they trying to prove?'
'I don't know.'
'That Coroner will go on and on harping at Maxim, making him lose his temper, making him say things he doesn't mean.
He will ask question after question, Frank, and Maxim won't stand it, I know he won't stand it.'
Frank did not answer.
He was driving very fast.
For the first time since I had known him he was at a loss for the usual conventional phrase.
That meant he was worried, very worried.
And usually he was such a slow careful driver, stopping dead at every crossroads, peering to right and left, blowing his horn at every bend in the road.
"That man was there,' I said, 'that man who came once to Manderley to see Mrs Danvers.'
'You mean Favell?' asked Frank.
'Yes, I saw him.'
'He was sitting there, with Mrs Danvers.'
'Yes, I know.'
'Why was he there?