“Miss Campbell?” Adam burst out, his voice alive with shock.

He had meant to confront the woman calmly and sternly, accosting her to explain herself, and demand to know what her part had been in all this business. But the sight of Miss Campbell, of all people, had caught him completely off his guard. He felt as though he had been plunged into the lake itself, and now was left standing there, gasping for air.

“Mr. Harding!” Miss Campbell replied, her voice shaking with evident shock. “I did not expect to see you here.”

“Well, that is clear enough,” Adam replied, noting that his own voice had dropped almost to the level of a growl. “What is your business here?”

Miss Campbell was evidently taken aback by the curtness of his greeting, and for a moment Adam himself wondered whether he had been unwise. Surely he would have been better advised to greet her with the cordiality that their casual acquaintance deserved, and to ask her what she did in the grounds of his father’s estate.

Why should she not be here, after all? A great many local people came to this spot to enjoy the beauty of the lake.

But there was something in the countenance of Miss Campbell when he saw her standing there, that made it quite evident to him that he had caught her in a position where she was greatly alarmed and frightened to be trapped. This alerted Adam at once to the feeling that Miss Campbell had something to fear.

He found himself once again feeling like a hunter — one who has, through that sixth sense that the most exceptional hunters possess — discerned that the chase is drawing to a close.

“I walk here often,” Miss Campbell replied. “My father is your father’s steward, and I grew up on these grounds.”

Adam had known this before -— of course, he had — but it did not seem like a good enough reason to him. He had a strong, unmistakable feeling that Miss Campbell was searching for excuses to explain her presence, and if he were to press further, then the whole thing should be unraveled.

He glanced at her dress. It was of black cambric, of fabric very similar to that which had been found clutched in little Freddie’s fist. Perhaps every young lady possessed such a dress; how could he know? Yet, he suspected if one were to look, they would find a patch of material to repair the garment concealed somewhere within its folds.

A dozen scenarios were flashing across his mind, each more extraordinary than the last. Had Miss Campbell had some connection with Mary Warwick that might have caused her to nurture a grudge?

An even more dreadful idea occurred to him. Was he to believe that Charity had been entirely deceived about her friend’s nature, or did he also need to reconsider about everything he thought to be true about the woman he loved?

All this flashed through his mind as he stood looking at her.

“I have seen you here before,” he said. “Your presence here seems inauspicious, given what took place here.”

Miss Campbell was frowning in such a way as to suggest that she truly did not understand his meaning, although the pallor of her face and the strangeness of her expression indicated that this was no ordinary evening stroll.

“It is a sad spot,” she agreed, “yet even sad spots such as this can retain their beauty, and I come here often to think.”

“What can you mean?” The cracking of her voice made Adam believe that she truly was shocked by his words, and yet the angered son and brother in him continued to press.

Although it went against the grain of his conscience to cause any distress or intimidation to a lady, he could not prevent himself from raising his voice as he replied, “Do not play the innocent!”

“I do not,” Miss Campbell said, and Adam discerned a tear overspilling her eye and dripping down her cheek, with the slow progress of summer rain. “I know I am far from an innocent party in this affair, and I know a great deal more than you do. However, I believe that you have misunderstood the circumstances.”

“What is there to misunderstand?” Adam replied. His breathing was coming in short gasps, and all he could think of was the memory of little Freddie, dead, his face so pale that it looked like the carved marble of a cherub in a cold church. “I see only what is evident before me, and the evidence suggests that you killed Mary and Freddie.”

“Killed them? Never!” Miss Campbell’s face, which had been a picture of distress, abruptly became steely, and the light of inner strength seemed to shine through her eyes. “I could never do such a thing.

“That is, I am sure, what everyone would say,” Adam replied. “Yet the fact of the matter is that someone did kill them, and I believe that someone to be a woman. A woman, indeed, who wore a dress much the same as the one that you wear at this moment.”

“A woman?” Miss Campbell’s tone became shocked, derisive. “Rest assured, Mr. Harding, a woman was not responsible for what happened to Mary and Freddie.”

“You say that,” Adam challenged, “in such a manner that suggests to me that you know a great deal more than you have expressed thus far. If you are so sure that it was not a woman who committed this crime, then perhaps you will enlighten me.”

“I cannot tell you what happened,” Miss Campbell replied slowly. Adam was reminded of a conversation with Charity, in which she had mentioned that Esther was always wise and cautious in her speech. He wondered now whether that caution was concealing a deeper propensity to lie and manipulate. “I cannot make accusations,” she said. “All that I can say is that I saw something on the day that they died.”

“Then tell me,” Adam said sharply. “In God’s name, if you wish me to believe in your innocence then you will tell me everything you know.”

“Gladly,” replied Miss Campbell, and the tears began to flow over her cheeks once again. “I have been clasping this secret close to my breast for a year, and it has caused me such terrible suffering. It will be a great relief to set it free.”

Adam stepped closer, and he could see that the motion alarmed Miss Campbell.

It suddenly occurred to him that he was a young man, quite alone with a weeping young woman, at the turn of twilight. Anyone who saw them together might easily misunderstand what was passing between them. He realized that even though manners were far from his mind in that moment, he needed to conduct himself in a gentlemanly fashion.

After all, if the girl were innocent, as she claimed, then it would be a terrible thing indeed to cause her still further distress.

“Tell me what happened,” he said, but this time when he spoke his voice was a great deal gentler. Miss Campbell seemed to take some comfort from his change of tone and drew in a deep breath to steady herself.

“I was walking in the grounds of the house on the day that Mary and Freddie died,” she said softly, the quiet volume of her voice contained a great upwelling of emotion. “I have always loved to walk here, yet feared that it was not the proper thing to do. As such, I have always done my best not to be seen, and believe that I have developed some skill on that score.”

“Not so much skill,” Adam replied. “Since I have returned, I have seen you twice, standing here by the lake.”

“The lake always makes me forget myself,” Miss Campbell replied, a little dreamily. “I am not a young woman given to romance or sentiment, Mr. Harding. I am sure that Charity has told you that. But all of our hearts are touched by something or another, and for me, I am always struck by the beauty of the scenery here.

“But that is by-the-by. What matters is that I was walking here that day and enjoying the sight of the lake without being seen myself. I intermittently heard noises on the other side, and so sought to conceal myself.”

Adam listened intently. He had heard nothing so far in Miss Campbell’s story that made him doubt it, but nothing that particularly made him believe it either.

“I could hear raised voices — a man and a woman. I saw Mary Warwick, whom I recognized, and a man whom I saw only from a distance. He had grey hair and was older, and as such, I made the natural assumption, given where I was. At the time, Mr. Harding, I am afraid that I believed it was your father.”

For a moment Adam’s heart simply stopped.

Could that be the answer to all of this? Could everything be explained by the simple, the common answer that his father had grown tired of his mistress and her son, had seen them as encumbrances and consequently decided to dispose of them?

Of any other man, he might have believed it. But not of his father. Never his father.

At that time, he reminded himself. She said ‘at that time’. Perhaps she means to say that she later changed her mind.

“Go on, Miss Campbell,” he said. His heart was in his mouth, but he was doing his best not to let it show.

“A child’s voice joined in the fray. I did not look, but I am certain that it must have been little Freddie. It seemed that all of them were arguing with each other, and with a great deal of passion. Then I heard a splash.”

The air between Adam and Miss Campbell seemed to have grown perfectly still, as though it, too, were listening intently. Adam barely dared to breathe the words, “and then what happened?”

“At that point, my alarm for the situation exceeded my fears of revealing myself, and I emerged from behind the trees to see what was going on. And I saw. I saw…”

“What did you see?” he demanded. He knew that the aggression in his tone was not improving the situation, and yet he could not help it. If Miss Campbell was lying, then it surely was a convincing lie, for he was listening to it so desperately that he was clinging to every word.

Miss Campbell turned her face toward the lake, as though she saw the whole thing once again, unfolding toward its tragic conclusion before her very eyes.

“I saw Mary Warwick struggling in the water. I did not see Freddie at all, but I could hear her screaming his name. And I saw…”

Here she broke off.

“I have not spoken for so long because I have long doubted the evidence of my own senses. It has taken things to reach this point for me to realize that I must trust in myself, and to be honest about what it was that I saw.”

“Tell me,” Adam commanded.

"I saw the Reverend Miller standing on that very pier.”

She said the words out in a rush, and then gasped in apparent relief, as if marveling at the sensation of what it felt like to carry the secret no longer.

She pointed to the little jetty sticking out into the water. “And the only thing that I can surmise from what I saw is that he pushed her in.”