Rawson narrowed his eyes in contemplation of an unfolding line of thought: “Well, what took her out again to the Point after she’d come in? She hadn’t a good deal of time and she wanted to change her clothes before supper. It looks to me as if she met some one in the house, some one who wanted her to go down there with them.” “Mrs. Cornell says she was alone.” “She might have started alone and gone to meet them.” [Pg 137] [Pg 137] “Then it couldn’t have been Stokes,” said Williams, “for Mr. Bassett says she wouldn’t speak to him if she could help it.” “That’s right,” Bassett nodded in agreement. “She’d never have made a date with him. She shunned him like the plague. If you knew her you wouldn’t see anything in that going out. She was restless and unhappy and the place here—the sea, the views—fascinated her. It was our last evening and it was like her not to want to miss any of it, slip out for a minute to enjoy the end of it.” “And came upon some one waiting for her—lying in wait and——” Rawson did not finish. A thud and crackling crash came from the living-room. The three men rose with a simultaneous leap and ran for the door. [Pg 138] [Pg 138] X Of all the people gathered in the house that evening Anne had been the most silent. Her ravaged face, the contours broken by gray hollows, bearing the stamp of shock and horror, had been unnoticed among the other faces. Now and then a pitying glance had been directed to her, grief as Sybil’s friend must have added a last unbearable poignancy to the tragedy. Of all After her question to Flora her mind had seemed to blur and cease to function. She had run from the house not knowing what she did, gone hither and thither with the others, looking, speaking, listening in a blind daze. It was not till
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