He waited, and she never came.
About ten minutes before I rang up, Frith telephoned to Frank again and said there had been a long-distance call for Mrs Danvers which he had switched through to her room, and she had answered.
This must have been about ten past six.
At a quarter to seven he knocked on the door and found her room empty.
Her bedroom too.
They looked for her and could not find her.
They think she's gone.
She must have gone straight out of the house and through the woods.
She never passed the lodge-gates.'
'Isn't it a good thing?' I said.
'It saves us a lot of trouble.
We should have had to send her away, anyway.
I believe she guessed, too.
There was an expression on her face last night. I kept thinking of it, coming up in the car.'
'I don't like it,' said Maxim.
'I don't like it.'
'She can' t do anything,' I argued.'
If she' s gone, so much the better.
It was Favell who telephoned of course.
He must have told her about Baker.
He would tell her what Colonel Julyan said.
Colonel Julyan said if there was any attempt at blackmail we were to tell him.
They won't dare do it. They can't.
It's too dangerous.'
'I'm not thinking of blackmail,' said Maxim.
'What else can they do?' I said.
'We've got to do what Colonel Julyan said.
We've got to forget it.
We must not think about it any more. It's all over, darling, it's finished.
We ought to go down on our knees and thank God that it's finished.'
Maxim did not answer.
He was staring in front of him at nothing.
'Your lobster will be cold,' I said; 'eat it, darling.
It will do you good, you want something inside you.
You're tired.'
I was using the words he had used to me.
I felt better and stronger.
It was I now who was taking care of him.
He was tired, pale.
I had got over my weakness and fatigue and now he was the one to suffer from reaction.
It was just because he was empty, because he was tired.
There was nothing to worry about at all.
Mrs Danvers had gone.
We should praise God for that, too.
Everything had been made so easy for us, so very easy.
'Eat up your fish,' I said.
It was going to be very different in the future.
I was not going to be nervous and shy with the servants any more.
With Mrs Danvers gone I should learn bit by bit to control the house.
I would go and interview the cook in the kitchen.