“This way,” she directed. “Be careful.”
They walked to the very edge of the palisading. It was scarcely more than a couple of feet high. She pointed downwards.
“Can you see?” she whispered.
By degrees his eyes faintly penetrated the darkness. It was as though they were looking down a precipice. The descent was perfectly sheer for nearly a hundred feet. At the bottom were the pine trees.
“Come here again in the morning,” she whispered. “You will see then. I brought you here to show you the place. It was here that the accident happened.”
“What accident?”
“Mr. Fentolin’s,” she continued. “It was here that he went over. He was picked up with both his legs broken. They never thought that he would live.”
Hamel shivered a little. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw more distinctly than ever the sheer fall, the tops of the bending trees below.
“What a horrible thing!” he exclaimed.
“It was more horrible than you know,” she continued, dropping her voice a little, almost whispering in his ear. “I do not know why I tell you this—you, a stranger—but if I do not tell some one, I think that the memory of it will drive me mad. It was no accident at all. Mr. Fentolin was thrown over!”