The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

“Where did you find your brooch?” The first words I could say to her were the words which put that trivial question at that important moment. “ She found it, Marian.” “Where?” “On the floor of the boathouse. Oh, how shall I begin⁠—how shall I tell you about it! She talked to me so strangely⁠—she looked so fearfully ill⁠—she left me so suddenly!” Her voice rose as the tumult of her recollections pressed upon her mind. The inveterate distrust which weighs, night and day, on my spirits in this house, instantly roused me to warn her⁠—just as the sight of the brooch had roused me to question her, the moment before. “Speak low,” I said. “The window is open, and the garden path runs beneath it. Begin at the beginning, Laura. Tell me, word for word, what passed between that woman and you.” “Shall I close the window?” “No, only speak low⁠—only remember that Anne Catherick is a dangerous subject under your husband’s roof. Where did you first see her?” “At the boathouse, Marian. I went out, as you know, to find my brooch, and I walked along the path through the plantation, looking down on the ground carefully at every step. In that way I got on, after a long time, to the boathouse, and as soon as I was inside it, I went on my