He had taken but a few steps when he stopped where he was, and he seemed to look directly at me in the window. I drew back, startled, still in a half sleep. But then I leaned forward again at once to see if he still stood on the lawn. He did. And when he saw my face again in the window, he raised his hand to me and waved.

Without thinking further, I turned from the window and reached for my shawl from off the easy chair, and covering my face and head, I made my way noiselessly to the back stairs. I paused at the top, listening. Two floors down, there came the clatter of pots and the sound of washing-up.

I stole down those narrow stairs to the kitchen passageway, where I crept past the overcoats and shawls and turned the knob to pass onto the small verandah at the back of the House.

All was quiet under the broad wash of moonlight, and for an instant I was unsure how I came to be suddenly outside, my heart beating fast. The night seemed strangely altered. I descended the back stairs into the too-bright night, intending to stay within the covering shadows of the House so as to watch if Bart might approach. There was something I wished him to do. With one hand at the covering round my throat, and the other tracing the lines of the House, I rounded the back corner and slipped along the dark green wood at the base of the verandah.

I paused at the front corner, then peered round to observe the lawn before me. Bart had disappeared. Where he had stood looking up at me and waving was nothing but flat gray lawn. A shadow crossed over the white rocks at the edge of the water, but it was that of a cloud. Perhaps he had withdrawn again into the boathouse.

“Maisie Thomas,” came her voice behind me. I whirled to face Cook’s tall figure standing there in the moonlight, the kitchen fire shovel in her hands.

At first I would not answer. And then I found I could not. There was something final in her appearance beside me, something terrible in her position. Without another word, she took up the shovel and began to walk directly into the trees. Once through the dark perimeter, she slowed, as if uncertain of her direction, and cast a sideways look at me as I stood at her shoulder. I cannot say what she saw upon my face, but she stiffened. She picked up her skirt with one hand, the shovel in the other, and began to walk in earnest upon the narrow, worn path that diverged from this green alley and led directly, I remembered, to that hidden grave.

The moon shone even in there, and we walked briskly, arriving before long at the familiar spot.