“Late that night, after the House had gone to bed, Miss Grange came down her stairs and passed by me without noticing I was there. She was dressed for the outdoors, and I was seized by a desire to talk to her, to ask if she thought your father’s case was grave. Sometimes just the sound of her voice reassures.”

I smiled, knowing precisely what he meant, and stared into the water beside us.

“So I followed her,” he continued, “down the stairs, through the hall, and out onto the piazza, where I stood hidden by one of the columns, watching as she moved toward the boathouse.”

“Why didn’t you call to her?”

“There was something so intent about her movements,” Bart said, “and at first I didn’t want to disturb her, thinking she might appear, at some point, to welcome conversation. But then”—he paused—“then I grew curious—where was she going? And why in so secretive a fashion? So I slipped down the steps and along the lawn after her, only half-thinking about what I did. After all, if she saw me, so much the better—I was seeking her out.”

“And did she?”

“No.” His voice was strained.

“What happened?”

“As I came to the boathouse door, I heard her voice and someone else’s, mingled in low conversation.” He spoke now with his eyes on the water, slowly calling forth what he remembered, as though he were seining the ocean’s bottom, casting a net and pulling the words up with great care.

“Who was the other person?” I asked, half-forming a picture in my head of the scene.

“I cannot say for certain, but Maisie—”

I looked straight at him.

“Their talk was of Halcy.”

I shivered, knowing. “It must have been Cook she spoke to.” “You may be right. It was another woman.”

“Could you hear what they were saying?”

“Miss Grange was insisting to the other person that ‘the girl had lost the child.’ Then there was a dark sound, like a sob choked back in the other person’s throat, and then the question: ‘Aye—but where is it buried?’”

I picked at the paint around the oarlocks, thinking about what Bart had overheard. What had Miss Grange to do with Halcy’s baby? I looked past him toward the islands, whose black humps ranged like a child’s drawing of hills sticking up from the water, raggedly uneven but distinct. Leadbetter’s Island lay straight off our bow as we were now pointed.

He followed my gaze. “Halcy Ames wished to tell you something.” “Halcy is dead, Bart,” I whispered. “You pulled her body from the water.”

We sat in silence. “And why should she appear to me?” I asked miserably.