circumstance, the sight of the doctor, standing there all alone amongst
the groups of furniture, recalled to her emotional memory her unexpected
meeting with Martin Decoud; she seemed to hear in the silence the voice
of that man, dead miserably so many years ago, pronounce the words,
"Antonia left her fan here." But it was the doctor's voice that spoke, a
little altered by his excitement. She remarked his shining eyes.

"Mrs. Gould, you are wanted. Do you know what has happened? You remember
what I told you yesterday about Nostromo. Well, it seems that a lancha,
a decked boat, coming from Zapiga, with four negroes in her, passing
close to the Great Isabel, was hailed from the cliff by a woman's
voice--Linda's, as a matter of fact--commanding them (it's a moonlight
night) to go round to the beach and take up a wounded man to the town.
The patron (from whom I've heard all this), of course, did so at once.
He told me that when they got round to the low side of the Great Isabel,
they found Linda Viola waiting for them. They followed her: she led them
under a tree not far from the cottage. There they found Nostromo lying
on the ground with his head in the younger girl's lap, and father Viola
standing some distance off leaning on his gun. Under Linda's direction
they got a table out of the cottage for a stretcher, after breaking off
the legs. They are here, Mrs. Gould. I mean Nostromo and--and Giselle.
The negroes brought him in to the first-aid hospital near the harbour.
He made the attendant send for me. But it was not me he wanted to
see--it was you, Mrs. Gould! It was you."

"Me?" whispered Mrs. Gould, shrinking a little.

"Yes, you!" the doctor burst out. "He begged me--his enemy, as he
thinks--to bring you to him at once. It seems he has something to say to
you alone."

"Impossible!" murmured Mrs. Gould.

"He said to me, 'Remind her that I have done something to keep a roof
over her head.' . . . Mrs. Gould," the doctor pursued, in the greatest
excitement. "Do you remember the silver? The silver in the lighter--that
was lost?"

Mrs. Gould remembered. But she did not say she hated the mere mention of
that silver. Frankness personified, she remembered with an exaggerated
horror that for the first and last time of her life she had concealed
the truth from her husband about that very silver. She had been
corrupted by her fears at that time, and she had never forgiven herself.
Moreover, that silver, which would never