He spurned the body with his foot.
“Lie there and cool yourself!” he snarled, and was turning away, when suddenly he started and put his hand to his brow.
“The beast has driven my senses out of me! The papers! Of course! Ha, ha, Master Jeffrey!” and, kneeling down again, he hurriedly turned the still figure over, and, unbuttoning the waistcoat, snatched out the papers.
As he did so, something—was it the nameless terror of death, to which mortal humanity is and ever will be thrall?—something made him wince and shrink back.
He stared for a moment or two at the white face, then, slowly, slowly, extended his hand, and trembling, laid it over the heart. The next instant he started back, and, white as the face beneath him, cried:
“Great Heaven! He’s dead!”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PART OF A HYPOCRITE.
“Doris!” The cry rang through the wood and reached the spot where Doris lay full length upon the bank like a crushed flower. For a moment she thought it was an invention of her disordered mind, then she seemed to recognize Jeffrey’s voice, and, thrusting the letter in her bosom, she sprang to her feet, and, with hurried steps, made her way, half-blindly, in the direction of the sound.
A few moments brought her to the open glade, and, with a cry of terror, she was on her knees beside the still form.