“What an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed Mary Carimon. “I know your husband said he rang many times.”
“That’s why I now think the bell must have been out of order; but I did not say so to Monsieur Dupuis,” returned Nancy. “He is a kind old man, and it would grieve him: for of course we know doctors ought to keep their door-bells in order.”
Madame Carimon rose in silence, but full of thought, and they continued their walk. It was low water in the harbour, but the sun was sparkling and playing on the waves out at sea. On the pier they found Rose and Anna Bosanquet; and in chatting with them Nancy’s mood became more cheerful.
That same evening, on that same pier, Mary Carimon spoke a few confidential words to her husband. They sat at the end of it, and the beauty of the night, so warm and still, induced them to linger. The bright moon sailed grandly in the heavens and glittered upon the water that now filled the harbour, for the tide was in. Most of the promenaders had turned down the pier again, after watching out the steamer. What a fine passage she would make, and was making, cutting there so smoothly through the crystal sea!
Mary Carimon began in a low voice, though no one was near to listen and the waves could not hear her. She spoke pretty fully of a haunting doubt that lay upon her mind, as to whether Lavinia had died a natural death.
“If we make the best of it,” she concluded, “her dying in that strangely sudden way was unusual; you know that, Jules; quite unaccountable. It never has been accounted for.”
Monsieur Jules, gazing on the gentle waves as they rose and fell in the moonlight at the mouth of the harbour, answered nothing.
“He had so much to wish her away for, that man: all the money would become Nancy’s. And I’m sure there was secret enmity between them—on both sides. Don’t you see, Jules, how suspicious it all looks?”
The moonbeams, illumining Monsieur Jules Carimon’s face, showed it to be very impassive, betraying no indication that he as much as heard what his wife was talking about.