“I wanted to get away.”
“Get away! What for—where?”
“To Jim Dallas. I know where he is.”
“You’ve known?”
“For a month. I’ve written him telling him I’d come if I could, if I ever could. Oh, but it’s been hopeless. I was spied on, dogged, followed—” Her voice rose on a hoarse note, stopped, and after a scared listening hush, went on whisperingly: “I want to stay dead, never come to life here again. It’s my chance—the only chance I’ll ever have. You’ve found me now and I’ll tell you everything.” And she told Anne the story—the story that no one else has ever heard.
Since she had received his address the longing to join her lover had possessed her. She had written she would come, she knew he was waiting for her, but the watch kept upon her made any move impossible. Whatever her anguish, she could not risk betraying his whereabouts; if it had been only herself she would have dared anything. In this position, growing daily more unbearable, had suddenly come the means of escape. Tragedy, swift and terrible as a bolt from the blue, had been her opportunity, and she had desperately seized it.
From her window, after the interview with Stokes, she had seen Joe, in his Sebastian dress, pass below. She had known it was he because of the costume and was astonished, supposing him already gone. Stokes came into view following him and the disturbing idea seized her that he had mistaken the boy for herself. She had run to the door to go down and end the misapprehension, and then stopped—at close quarters Stokes would see who it was, and to let Joe—evil-tongued and hostile—discover their rendezvous, was the last thing she wanted. She went back to the window to watch the outcome and saw neither of them. This frightened her—the only place they could have disappeared to was the summer-house. Stokes might say too much before he discovered his mistake, and panic-stricken, she was about to rush out, when Joe ran from the doorway and the shot followed.
For a space—she had no idea how long—she was paralyzed, not believing her senses. She remembered moving back into the room and from there she saw Stokes issue from the summer-house and flee to the shelter of the pine wood, that told her what she had seen was real, a murder had been committed under her eyes, and she went to the door to go down. Holding it open she paused on the threshold, heard the voices below, heard Stokes’ entering words and had made a forward step to run down and denounce him, when a sound from outside stopped her. Flora’s cry that Sybil was killed.
It was that wild screaming voice that gave her the idea, sent it through her brain like a zigzag of lightning. While the people below made their clamorous rush from the house, she stood in the doorway, motionless in contemplation of the possibilities that opened before her. The excitement that had shaken her a few minutes earlier died, her mind steadied and cleared, she felt herself uplifted by an invincible daring and courage. There was no danger of a recovery of the body for she had heard from Gabriel and Miss Pinkney that bodies carried out on the tide were never found.
Alone on the second floor with little fear of interruption she had gone about her preparations at once. She had taken nothing from her own room but money from her purse (leaving a small amount to avert suspicion) the candies from the box on the table, a few crackers she had brought up the night before from supper, and a pair of scissors. Then going to Joe’s room she had gathered the clothes he had discarded, lying ready to her hand on the bed—everything from the shoes to the cap—and stolen out and upward to the top floor. Here she had put on the clothes and cut off her hair—she showed Anne the ends of the yellow curls in her jacket pocket—hiding her own clothes in a box in the store-room.