Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/179

Rh she was left. A pull of the chain brought back the boat; and the author of the crime walked away."

Dennis slowly shifted his position, dropped his head, dropped his hands, sat staring lividly at the floor. "But how could she be caught?"

The Doctor hesitated, as if in the presence of an ambiguity. "The poor little girl? You'd see if you saw the place."

"I passed it to come back here," Dennis said. "But I didn't look, for I didn't know."

The Doctor patted his knee. "If you had known you would have looked still less. She rose; she drifted some yards; then she was washed against the base of the bridge, and one of the openings of her little dress hooked itself to an old loose clamp. There she was kept."

"And no one came by?"

"No one came till, by the mercy of God, I came!"

Dennis took it in as if with a long, dry gulp, and the two men sat for a minute looking at each other. At last the younger one got up. "And yet the risk of anything but a straight course is hideous."

The Doctor kept his place. "Everything's hideous.