“So then you refused?”
Brandelaar continued to stare in front of him at the floor.
“The lady would go—in spite of the bad weather. And she would not be satisfied till I had persuaded my friend Van dem Bosch to take her in his cutter to Dover?”
“This was last night?”
“Yes—last night.”
“And what more?” persisted Heideck.
“He came back at noon to-day. They had a misfortune on the way.”
Heideck’s frame shook convulsively. A fearful suspicion occurred to him. He needed all his strength of will to control himself.
“And the lady?”
“Herr major, it was the lady who met with an accident. She fell overboard on the journey.”