Another moment, and she felt
assured that she would have known all. Never mind! it should come, she
told herself. The end was not yet.

"No; of course I did not mean it seriously," she repeated slowly. "Who
are those men coming up the hill? Can you see?"

He moved a little nearer to her, and looked downward. On the slope of
the hill were three men. She had recognized them already, and she
watched him steadily.

"Your father is one," he said quietly. "The other two are strangers to
me."

"Perhaps I can tell you something about them," she said, still watching
him intently. "One is the constable from Mallory, and the other is a
detective."

There was a slight hardening of his face, and she fancied that she saw
his under lip quiver for a moment. Had he shown any guilty fear, had he
shrunk back, or uttered a single moan, her sympathy would never have
been aroused. But as it was, she was a woman, and her face softened,
and the tears stood in her eyes. There was something almost grand
in the composure with which he was waiting for what seemed
inevitable--something of the magnificent resignation with which the
noblemen of France one by one took their place at the block, and the
simile was heightened by the slightly contemptuous, slightly defiant
poise of his finely shaped head. She saw him cast one lingering glance
around at the still sea, with its far-off motionless sails; at the clear
sky, from which the brilliancy of coloring was fading away, and at the
long sweep of moorland with its brilliant patches of heather and gorse,
now slightly blurred by the mists rising from the earth. It was as
though he were saying a last farewell to things which he had loved, and
which he would see no more--and it had a strange effect upon her. The
memory of that hideous crime left her. She could think only of the
abstract pathos of the present situation, and she felt very miserable.
It was wrong, unnatural of her; but at that moment, if she could have
helped him to escape, she would have done her best in the face of them
all.

They were almost at hand now, and she lifted her eyes, in which the
tears were fast gathering. She thought nothing of her own situation--of
their finding her alone with the murderer. With characteristic
unselfishness she thought only of him.

She met her father's surprised gaze with indifference. She had a sort of
feeling that nothing mattered much. What was going to happen eclipsed
everything else.

And so i