He did not say Rebecca or Mrs de Winter, as I expected him to do.
'Did she use it a great deal?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, she did.
Moonlight picnics, and — and one thing and another.'
We were walking again side by side, I still humming my little tune.
'How jolly,' I said brightly.
'Moonlight picnics must be great fun.
Did you ever go to them?'
'Once or twice,' he said.
I pretended not to notice his manner, how quiet it had become, how reluctant to speak about these things.
'Why is the buoy there in the little harbour place?' I said.
'The boat used to be moored there,' he said.
'What boat?' I asked.
'Her boat,' he said.
A strange sort of excitement was upon me.
I had to go on with my questions.
He did not want to talk about it. I knew that, but although I was sorry for him and shocked at my own self I had to continue, I could not be silent.
'What happened to it?' I said.
'Was that the boat she was sailing when she was drowned?'
'Yes,' he said quietly, 'it capsized and sank.
She was washed overboard.'
'What sort of size boat was it?' I asked.
'About three tons.
It had a little cabin.'
'What made it capsize?' I said.
'It can be very squally in the bay,' he said.
I thought of that green sea, foam-flecked, that ran down channel beyond the headland.
Did the wind come suddenly, I wondered, in a funnel from the beacon on the hill, and did the little boat heel to it, shivering, the white sail fiat against a breaking sea?
'Could not someone have got out to her?' I said.
'Nobody saw the accident, nobody knew she had gone,' he said.
I was very careful not to look at him.
He might have seen the surprise in my face.
I had always thought it happened in a sailing race, that other boats were there, the boats from Kerrith, and that people were watching from the cliffs.
I did not know she had been alone, quite alone, out there in the bay.
"They must have known up at the house!' I said.
'No,' he said.
'She often went out alone like that.
She would come back any time of the night, and sleep at the cottage on the beach.'
'Was not she nervous?'
'Nervous?' he said; 'no, she was not nervous of anything.'
'Did — did Maxim mind her going off alone like that?'
He waited a minute, and then 'I don't know,' he said shortly.
I had the impression he was being loyal to someone.
Either to Maxim or to Rebecca, or perhaps even to himself.
He was odd.
I did not know what to make of it.
'She must have been drowned, then, trying to swim to shore, after the boat sank?' I said.
'Yes,' he said.
I knew how the little boat would quiver and plunge, the water gushing into the steering well, and how the sails would press her down, suddenly, horribly, in that gust of wind.
It must have been very dark out there in the bay.