“Lisle – wake up! Don’t you realise what has been happening? That accident to your steering – did you think it did itself? I tried to make myself believe that it was Pell who had been playing tricks, and I very nearly succeeded. And then – Cissie Cole-”

Lisle pulled away from him.

“How could it be Rafe? He was here with me after she went away.”

“And he went off for a walk along the beach a good half hour before she fell. He says he only went half way and turned back. But suppose he didn’t – suppose he went up the track on to the cliff path and saw Cissie standing up there on the headland looking out to the sea. She was standing there with her back to him on the edge of the cliff-like Lydia. It was getting dark. She was wearing your coat. Her hair would show up in the dusk – fair hair, like yours. Wouldn’t he take her for you? He’d left you at Tanfield but why shouldn’t you have taken my car or his and driven up there to see the sunset just as Lal and I had done? I tell you he saw Cissie there. He thought he was seeing you, and he pushed her over, just as he had pushed Lydia over and for the same reason.”

She moistened her lips.

“What reason, Dale?”

He went and sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands for a moment. Then he looked up again.

“Lisle, you have thought I cared too much for Tanfield – no don’t say anything, because it’s no good. I’ve felt you thinking that time and again, and I suppose in a way you were right, because I can see where that sort of thing gets you if you don’t take a pull on it. Rafe’s always been crazy about the place. Nothing else has ever counted with him. He doesn’t love people – he loves Tanfield. I expect you’ve been taken in by the way he talks about it – most people are. He’ll call it a great barrack of a place and say how much better off we’d be if we hadn’t got it slung round our necks, but it doesn’t mean a thing – it’s a cover-up. He’s always been like that – if he cares about anything he’ll make a joke of it. And what he cares about, and always has, and always will, is just this place and the fact that it belongs to us. He’d do anything, sacrifice anyone. You’ve got to believe me, because I know what I’m talking about. If Lydia hadn’t died when she did, Tanfield would have had to go. He saved Tanfield – that’s the way it would look to him. What did Lydia matter? Just one life in all those generations. And then we come to you – the same situation, the same danger. He knows I’ll have to sell. He knows that if you died, I shouldn’t have to sell. Look back and think about the things that have been happening. I’ve had to, and I can’t resist the weight of the evidence. You were nearly drowned. Who was making all the noise, splashing and ducking us, whilst you were calling for help? Rafe. The steering of your car snapped on the hill. Why? Evans said the track-rod had been filed through. I shut him up. He thought it was Pell, and that’s where I began to be afraid about Rafe – little things I noticed in his manner when we were talking about it, and once I saw him look at you – well, there’s no mistaking hate.”

Lisle sat there. She had asked Rafe if he hated her, and he had said yes – on the Wednesday night – just after Cissie had gone-

Dale went on speaking in a deep, troubled voice.

“I can’t imagine why that car smash didn’t kill you. He was down in the village waiting for it – do you remember that? – waiting to see you come down that hill and smash against Cooper’s barn. You know, Lisle, you were born lucky. Just imagine his feelings when the car went to glory without you. And that meant he had to try again. He wouldn’t give up – not with Tanfield at stake. Besides, once you start a thing like that, it gets you and you’ve got to see it through. He must have been thinking what he could do next when he saw Cissie on the cliff and took her for you. It must have looked like the most marvellous chance – and he took it. That’s how those prints of his got on the shoulders of the coat – he took her by the shoulders and pushed her over. And then he found he’d been tricked again. He hasn’t had much luck, has he? You’ve had it all. But you mustn’t try it too far – it might turn against you. That’s why I’m telling you this. I must tell him I know and send him away. And meanwhile you’ve got to be careful. Don’t let him drive you anywhere. Don’t be alone with him. Stick to Alicia or to me. I couldn’t do anything until this funeral was over – we mustn’t have talk. Besides, I only got the proof today.”

She had to try twice before she could say,

“What proof?”

Dale’s hand went into a pocket and came up with something bright. It dazzled as she looked at it, and she remembered the bright thing Alicia had tossed to him when she left them under the cedar. The bright thing lay on Dale’s palm. He held it out to her.

“Recognise this?”

It was the cigarette-case she had given to Rafe on his birthday, his name on it in her writing – “Rafe”.

“When did you see it last?” said Dale.

She knew that answer. All of them sitting on the terrace. Rafe’s case – this case – tossed down on the cushion of a vacant chair. And William coming out to say Cissie Cole was waiting to see her.

She said, “Wednesday – just before Cissie came-”

Dale nodded.

“You haven’t seen it since?”

“No.”

“Nor anyone else. He’s been using that old battered wreck we used to chaff him about. Do you know why?”

She moved a very little. The movement said, “No.”

Dale threw the case down on the end of the bed.

“Because this one’s been lying up on Tane Head where he dropped it when he pushed Cissie over the cliff. Alicia found it there this morning. She missed that diamond and emerald clasp of hers and she went up there to look for it. A complete fool’s errand of course. I don’t suppose she dropped it there at all – anyhow she didn’t find it. But she found Rafe’s cigarette-case. It was right on the edge, but it had slipped down into a sort of crack. I suppose that’s why the police didn’t find it – they must have been all over the ground.” He reached out for the case and put it back in his pocket again. “He must have been wondering where he dropped it. He won’t show much fight when I tell him – it gives me the whip hand all right. I’ll pay his passage, and he can pack off to Australia, and see whether that job he turned down is still going.”

Lisle put up her hand to her cheek in a forlorn gesture.

“What about Pell? You can’t -you can’t let him! Dale!”

Dale got to his feet, came over to her, and put an arm about her shoulders.

“Oh, we won’t let Pell hang,” he said, and bent to kiss her.

LISLE had the feeling that the day would never end. All this bright sun and blue sky, this inward strain and terror, this numbness dulling something which without it would be agony, seemed to her shocked sense to have neither beginning nor ending. It was like a dreadful travesty of eternity. She felt unable either to look forward or back.

There was a moment when Rafe asked her if she would like to go for a drive – “up over the downs to get some air. You look all in.” Dale said, “No – she’s too tired,” and the numbness was pierced by a jagged stab of pain. Just why that should have hurt so much, she could not have told. Rafe wanting her to go with him, his voice sounding kind. And Dale not giving her time to answer because he was afraid to let her go with Rafe as they had gone so innocently often before their natural world had changed into a nightmare. Afraid to let her go with Rafe… But she herself was not afraid. Perhaps that was just because she was too numb to feel afraid – too numb really to take in what Dale had told her. Only she couldn’t struggle any more. She let Dale speak for her, and sat there without a word to say.