Tallente raised his eyebrows.
"Palliser was twenty years younger than I and of at least equal build and strength," he said. "It was not my fault that he seemed unable to defend himself."
"But his disappearance—tell me about that?"
"We were within a few feet of the edge of the cliff. I struck him harder, Perhaps, than I had intended, and he went over. I stood there and hooked down, but I could see nothing. I heard the crashing of some bushes, and after that—silence. I even called out to him, but there was no reply. Some time later, Robert and I searched the cliff and the bay below for his body. We discovered nothing."
"It was high tide that night!" she cried. "You know very well that he must have been drowned!"
"I have answered your question," Tallente replied quietly.
There was a cold fury in her eyes. The veins seemed to stand out on her clenched, worn hands. She looked at him with all the suppressed passion of a creature impotent yet fiercely anxious to strike.
"I shall give information," she cried. "You shall be charged with his murder!"
Tallente shook his head.
"You will waste your time, Stella," he said. "For one thing, a woman may not give evidence against her husband. Another thing, there cannot very well be a charge for murder unsupported by the production of the body. And for a third thing, I should deny the whole story."