‘The jacket she went away in.’
‘You are sure it was hers?’
‘Yes.’
‘You could swear to both hat and jacket?’
‘Yes.’
Granville leapt to his feet.
‘Who throw their things into the water’—he asked, in strange excitement, for him—‘the people who mean to sink or the people who mean to swim—or the people who mean to stay on the bank?’
Alfred stared at him blankly. Gradually the light dawned upon him that had entered Granville’s quicker intelligence in a flash.
‘What do you mean?’ whispered Alfred; and, in a moment, his voice and his limbs were trembling.
‘Nothing very obscure,’ replied Granville, with a touch of contempt, which, even then, he could not manage to conceal (Alfred’s slow perception always had irritated him); ‘simply this: Gladys has not drowned herself. She was never the girl to do it. She had too much sense and vitality and courage. But she may mean us to think there’s an end of her—God knows with what intention. She may have gone off somewhere—God knows where. We must find out——’