She covered him with her blankets, scarcely knowing what she did, and washed the blood from her hands in the water, and then, glancing in the mirror and seeing that the colour had drained away from her face too, she dabbed rouge high on her cheek-bones with unsteady fingers. Then she left her room, leaving William unconscious on her bed, and walking down the stairs into the dining-hall she heard the scraping of the chairs on the stone floor as the guests rose to their feet and waited for her. She held her head high in the air, and there was a smile on her lips, but she saw nothing, not the blaze of the candles, nor the long table piled with dishes, nor Godolphin in his plum-coloured coat, nor Rashleigh with his grey wig, nor Eustick fingering his sword, nor all the eyes of the men who stared at her and bowed low as she passed to her seat at the head of the table, but only one man, who stood on the deck of his ship in the silent creek, saying farewell to her in thought as he waited for the tide.
Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman’s Creek
