He left them, re-entering the garden by the side-gate which Paul had himself constructed with his capable, carpenter's hands. There was now no further excuse for delay; he must exchange the darkness for the unwelcome light, and must share out his private knowledge to Eve. Those men, fisher-folk, simple folk, had not counted as human spectators, but rather as part of the brotherhood of night, nature, and the stars. He waited for Eve in the drawing-room, having assured himself that she had been told nothing, and there, presently, he saw her come in, her heavy hair dressed high, a fan and a flower drooping from her hand, and a fringed Spanish shawl hanging its straight silk folds from her escaping shoulders. Before her indolence, and her slumbrous delicacy, he hesitated. He wildly thought that he would allow the news to wait. Tragedy, reality, were at that moment so far removed from her.... She said in delight, coming up to him, and forgetful that they were in the house in obedience to a mysterious and urgent message,-- 'Julian, have you seen the fireworks? Come out into the garden. We'll watch.' He put his arm through her bare arm,-- 'Eve, I must tell you something.' 'Fru Thyregod?' she cried, and the difficulty of his task became all but insurmountable. 'Something serious. Something about Father Paul.' Her strange eyes gave him a glance of undefinable suspicion. 'What about him?' 'He has been found, in the water, at the bottom of the garden.' 'In the water?' 'In the sea. Drowned.' He told her all the circumstances, doggedly, conscientiously, under the mockery of the tinsel flames that streamed out from the top of the columns, and of the distant lights flashing through the windows, speaking as a man who proclaims in a foreign country a great truth bought by the harsh experience of his soul, to an audience unconversant with his alien tongue. This truth that he had won, in the presence of quiet stars, quieter death, and simple men, was desecrated by its recital to a vain woman in a room where the very architecture was based on falsity. Still he persevered, believing that his own intensity of feeling must end in piercing its way to the foundations of her heart. He laid bare even his harassing conviction of his neglected responsibility,-- 'I should have suspected ... I should have suspected....' He looked at Eve; she had broken down and was sobbing, Paul's name mingled incoherently with her sobs. He did not doubt that she was profoundly shocked, but with a new-found cynicism he ascribed her tears to shock rather than to sorrow. He himself would have been incapable of shedding a single tear. He waited quietly for her to recover herself.