Endless Night. Агата Кристи

you won’t tell your mother, not until it’s all over and then they can throw fits and it won’t matter.’

      ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, ‘wonderful, Ellie. But there’s one thing. I hate telling you about it. We can’t live at Gipsy’s Acre, Ellie. Wherever we build our house it can’t be there because it’s sold.’

      ‘I know it’s sold,’ said Ellie. She was laughing. ‘You don’t understand, Mike. I’m the person who’s bought it.’

       CHAPTER 8

      I sat there, on the grass by the stream among the water flowers with the little paths and the stepping stones all round us. A good many other people were sitting round about us, but we didn’t notice them or even see they were there, because we were like all the others. Young couples, talking about their future. I stared at her and stared at her. I just couldn’t speak.

      ‘Mike,’ she said. ‘There’s something, something I’ve got to tell you. Something about me, I mean.’

      ‘You don’t need to,’ I said, ‘no need to tell me anything.’

      ‘Yes, but I must. I ought to have told you long ago but I didn’t want to because—because I thought it might drive you away. But it explains in a way, about Gipsy’s Acre.’