Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/146

132 been caught, she was held, in the slow current by some obstruction, and by the pier. Don't ask me how—when I arrived, by the mercy of heaven, she had been brought to the bank. But she was gone." With a movement of the head toward the room she had quitted, "We carried her back here," she went on. Vidal's face, which was terrible in the intensity of its sudden vision, struck her apparently as for the instant an echo, wild but interrogative, of what she had last said; so she explained quickly: "To think—to get more time." He turned straight away from her; he went, as she had done, to the window and, with his back presented, stood looking out in the mere rigour of dismay.

She was silent long enough to show a respect for the particular consternation that her manner of watching him betrayed her impression of having stirred; then she went on: "How long were you at Bounds with Rose?"

Dennis turned round without meeting her eyes or, at first, understanding her question. "At Bounds?"

"When, on your joining her, she went over with you."