CHAPTER XXVITwo things happened after lunch. Miss Silver went down to Sea View to retrieve a missing skein of wool, and James Hardwick took his wife out in the car. Carmona had found him at the writing-table in the study. Looking up as she came in he noticed how pale she was. How very, very pale. And not with the clear translucent pallor which he had noticed the first time he saw her. This was a drained, exhausted look, and the marks under her eyes were like bruises. She shut the door behind her, leaned against it, and said in a low, steady voice,
“James, we can’t go on like this. I must speak to you.”
He laid down his pen.
“Some things are better left unsaid, don’t you think? The less you know, the less I know, the less we talk about whatever we know, or don’t know, or guess, or suspec
