When he had gone, Ferguson walked to Grasslands where he found the family recuperating in a relief too deep for words. Bébita was in bed still asleep. The doctor, sent for the night before, said she was suffering from the effects of a drug, but that rest and quiet would soon restore her.
They collected on the balcony to hear his story. When it was over, questions answered, amazement and horror vented in various forms, Mr. Janney said he would like to walk over to the wharf and have a talk with the police himself. Ferguson decided to go with him; there would be a lot of business to be gone through, an inquest with all its unpleasant detail.
As they rose to leave, Suzanne announced that she wanted to come too. She looked a wreck, in her hysterical jubilation forgetful of her rouge and powder; a worn little wraith of a woman whose journey to the heart of life had stripped her of all coquetry and beauty. They tried to dissuade her, but, as usual, she was insistent; she wanted to see the men herself, she wanted to hear everything. On this day of thanksgiving no one had the will to thwart her, so they accepted with the best grace they could and she walked through the woods with them.
There was a group of men on the wharf, the local police, the coroner, some of Ferguson's employees. The body had been put in the boathouse, laid on a table under a sheltering tarpaulin. Ferguson and Mr. Janney drew off to the end of the dock in low-toned conference with the officials. They were relieved to see that Suzanne had no mind to listen, but stayed by herself in the shade of the boathouse wall.
She leaned against it, looking out over the sparkling reaches of the Sound. Her thoughts were of the dead man, close behind her there, on the other side of the wooden partition. She wondered with an awed amaze at his wild act and its dark ending. She wondered what manner of man he was, what he was like—a human creature, unknown to her, who could want only to cause her such anguish.
She shot a glance over her shoulder and saw that the door of the boathouse was half open—the coroner had been in and had neglected to close it. She looked at the men at the end of the wharf; they stood in a little cluster, backs toward her, heads together in animated discussion. She moved from the wall, advanced on tip-toe through the slant of shade, and slipped through the open doorway.
The place was very still, its clear, varnished brownness impregnated with the sea's salty tang, through its windows the golden gleam of the waves reflected in rippling lights that chased across its peaked ceiling. She stole to the table where the grim shape lay and lifted the tarpaulin with a trembling hand. The other shot suddenly to her mouth, strangling a scream, and she dropped the heavy cloth as if it burned her. Both hands went up over her face, flattened there until the nails were empurpled, and she stood, bent as if cramped with pain, for the moment all movement paralyzed.
Ferguson, informed of all he wanted to know, turned from the others to join her. She was not where he had left her, and moving down the wharf he looked about and, seeing no sign of her, decided that she had gone home. He was passing the boathouse doorway when she came through it almost upon him.
"Good heavens!" he said angrily, "have you been in there?" Then, seeing her face, he caught her arm and held her. Would there ever be an end to her willfulness!
"Come home," he said, sharply, and led her away. She tottered beside him, drooping and ghastly. As they crossed the road to the path up the bluff he could not forbear an exasperated: