“Shall I find him?” said Jane.
“No, not now. I really want to talk to you. I’ve just been speaking to Jeffrey Ember, and he tells me you had a fright yesterday. What frightened you?”
“Nothing—my own silliness.”
Jane felt as if she must scream. George Patterson had disappeared as if by a conjuring trick. Where had he gone to? Where was he? It was just like being in a dream.
Raymond Heritage seemed to tower before her in her white dress. Her uncovered head almost touched the low beam above the door.
“Jeffrey said you were blind with fright—that you ran right into him. He said you were as white as a sheet and shaking all over. I want to know what frightened you?”
“A stone—it fell into the sea——”
“What made it fall? A man? What man?”
Jane leaned against the door-post, her breath coming and going, her eyes held by those imperious eyes.
“A stone,” she said; “it fell—I ran away.”