Мертвая комната. Уровень 2 / The Dead Secret

She wrote a few lines addressed to Captain Treverton, in which she wrote that she was hiding a secret from his knowledge. She honestly believes no harm will come to him, or to anyone in whom he is interested. She is asking his pardon for leaving the house secretly. Then she sealed this short note, and left it on her table. She listened again at the door; and began to descend the stairs at Porthgenna Tower for the last time.

At the entrance of the nursery she stopped. The tears began to flow again. She ran to the stairs, reached the kitchen-floor in safety, and left the house.

She diverged to the church; but stopped before she came to it, at the public well. She dropped into the well the little rusty key, the key from the Myrtle Room. Then she hurried on, and entered the church-yard. She came to one of the graves, situated a little apart from the rest. On the head-stone were inscribed these words:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF HUGH POLWHEAL, AGED 26 YEARS. HE MET WITH HIS DEATH THROUGH THE FALL OF A ROCK IN PORTHGENNA MINE, DECEMBER 17TH, 1823.

Sarah gathered a few leaves of grass from the grave. Then she said,

“God help and forgive me – it is all done and over now![9 - it is all done and over now! – теперь всему конец!]”

With those words she turned her back on the old house, and followed the moorland path.

Four hours afterward Captain Treverton desired one of the servants at Porthgenna Tower to inform Sarah Leeson that he wished to hear everything about the dying moments of her mistress.

Captain Treverton read the letter, and ordered an immediate search after the missing woman. She was so easy to describe and to recognize, by the premature grayness of her hair, by the odd, scared look in her eyes, that she was traced as far as Truro. In that large town the track of her was lost, and never recovered again.

Nothing explained the nature of the secret at which she hinted in her letter.

Chapter IV

The church of Long Beckley is not very remarkable. The large open space around the church can be approached in three different directions. There is a road from the village, there is a broad gravel walk, which begins at the vicarage gates, and there is a footpath over the fields.