"It is precisely what I expected," said she.
"Did you think then it was Mr. Rendall down among the rocks?" I enquired.
"No," she said, "and it wasn't."
"Oh," I replied in a tone which (if I achieved my intention) might have
meant anything--or nothing.
Her father had been standing perfectly silent during this bout, a
towering figure muffled in a heavy ulster and scarf, with the rim of his
hat turned down over his face. Now he spoke in his dry caustic way,
"Have you had enough exercise, Mr. Merton?"
"Quite, thank you."
"Then we can all go back together."
He turned and his daughter took his arm. I walked behind them--it seemed
on the whole safer, and I kept my hand in my pocket all the while.
I had seen no one, it is true; I had heard no sound that could be sworn
to as made by a human being, the thing I saw so dimly might possibly not
have been a lethal weapon (and if it was a weapon, what in Heaven's name
could it be? I wondered); it might conceivably have been a large bird
some distance off, just as by a reverse illusion men are said to have
fired at bumble bees when grouse driving. Also, it was within the bounds
of possibility that the tinkling stones might not have been thrown down
by some one above in order to draw me under that face. Everything had
been so vague that all these alternatives were conceivable.
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