His wife--that had been the unforeseen retribution. He had not realized that suspicion would turn on her, and then saw that it might, saw that it did. His hell began when he grasped the danger she was in, listened to Rawson’s questions on the night of their arrival, sensed Williams’ line of thought when the scene was rehearsed on the shore. He had tried to turn them to Joe Tracy, snatching at anything to gain time, but he would have told, he was ready to tell. He kept reiterating the words, his burning eyes moving from one face to the other--he had broken her heart, ruined her life, but he was not so utterly lost as that. It was her assurances that quieted him. She had known from the first he would tell as she had known from the first he had done it. He relaxed and sank back, his eyes closing, and the doctor motioned them to go. Flora followed them to the door and held them there a moment to repeat what she had said--as if, like him, wanting to rid her mind of all its secret agony. It wasn’t surmise; she had seen him. When she had turned from the water after her attempt to catch the body she had had a clear view of him stealing through the pine wood, moving noiselessly and watching the house. “He never knew it,” she said. “That night when you, Mr. Williams, nearly caught me on the stairs, I was going to see him, say I knew what he’d done and that I’d help him and lie for him and stand by him. Oh, yes--I don’t care what I tell now. He was my husband, I’d loved him and he’d been cursed--cursed and destroyed.” The men closed the door softly as upon the dead. What they had heard and left behind them had taken the zest from their accomplishment and in the glow of the hall lights their faces looked drawn and hollowed with fatigue. Rawson drew out his watch--half past two. The best thing they could do was to get a little sleep. The day would be on them in a few hours, there would be a lot of business to get through and he, for one, was dead beat. They wouldn’t take off their clothes, just turn in on the sofa and divan, and stepping gently, as befitted a place where so dark a doom had fallen, he and Williams passed into the library. Sleep was far from Bassett. He would like to have seen Anne, but it would have been inhuman to rouse her, and he went toward the living-room where he could think in quiet. The screen still covered by the sheet and the projector facing it were untouched and gave the place the air of a scene set for a play. Silence brooded over the room, a silence so peaceful and profound that it seemed as if the hideous tumult of the last hour must be a nightmare illusion. He dropped into a chair, his breath expelled with a groaning note, then heard Anne’s voice from the gallery above: “I’ve been waiting for you. May I come down?” There she was, dressed, leaning against the railing.