The beach was deserted again.
I could just see the stone chimney of the cottage through a gap in the dark trees.
I had a sudden unaccountable desire to run.
I pulled at Jasper's leash and panted up the steep narrow path through the woods, not looking back any more.
Had I been offered all the treasures in the world I could not have turned and gone down to the cottage or the beach again.
It was as though someone waited down there, in the little garden where the nettles grew.
Someone who watched and listened.
Jasper barked as we ran together.
He thought it was some new kind of game.
He kept trying to bite the belt and worry it.
I had not realised how closely the trees grew together here, their roots stretching across the path like tendrils ready to trip one.
They ought to clear all this, I thought as I ran, catching my breath, Maxim should get the men on to it.
There is no sense or beauty in this undergrowth.
That tangle of shrubs there should be cut down to bring light to the path.
It was dark, much too dark.
That naked eucalyptus tree stifled by brambles looked like the white bleached limb of a skeleton, and there was a black earthy stream running beneath it, choked with the muddied rains of years, trickling silently to the beach below.
The birds did not sing here as they did in the valley.
It was quiet in a different way.
And even as I ran and panted up the path I could hear the wash of the sea as the tide crept into the cove.
I understood why Maxim disliked the path and the cove.
I disliked it too.
I had been a fool to come this way.
I should have stayed on the other beach, on the white shingle, and come home by the Happy Valley.
I was glad to come out on to the lawn and see the house there in the hollow, solid and secure.
The woods were behind me.
I would ask Robert to bring me my tea under the chestnut tree.
I glanced at my watch.
It was earlier than I thought, not yet four.
I would have to wait a bit.
It was not the routine at Manderley to have tea before half past.
I was glad Frith was out.
Robert would not make such a performance of bringing the tea out into the garden.
As I wandered across the lawn to the terrace my eye was caught by a gleam of sunshine on something metal showing through the green of the rhododendron leaves at the turn in the drive.
I shaded my eyes with my hand to see what it was.
It looked like the radiator of a car.
I wondered if someone had called.
If they had though, they would have driven up to the house, not left their car concealed like that from the house, at the turn of the drive, by the shrubs.
I went a little closer.
Yes, it was a car all right.
I could see the wings now and the hood.
What a funny thing.
Visitors never did that as a rule.
And the tradesmen went round the back way by the old stables and the garage.
It was not Frank's Morris. I knew that well.
This was a long, low car, a sports car.
I wondered what I had better do.
If it was a caller Robert would have shown them into the library or the drawing-room.
In the drawing-room they would be able to see me as I came across the lawn.
I did not want to face a caller dressed like this.
I should have to ask them to stay to tea.