JUDGE TWOHEY’S breaking off as he had done was like a chord of music left unresolved, his death three days later deepening the frustrating emptiness it was vain to protest. It was seven in the morning when Nat called Spig and asked him to go over and tell Miss Fairlie. It was still dark, but there was a light in the old kitchen on the Plumtree Cove side of the big house. Through a c***k in the shutter he could see her, sitting at the table, with a coffee pot and two cups and saucers on it. She had on a white wool wrapper with a shawl around her shoulders, her short, pale hair still uncombed. Spig knocked at the door. She looked up, and in a moment rose and came over. She unbolted the long, green shutters on the door and pushed one of them open.
“You’ve come.” An icy wind was slashing acro
