“You know I don’t!” she cried, fiercely. “You know it. It is because I don’t that I came to find out the truth. Bob, won’t you tell me? For your own sake? And for mine?”
He had been standing by the work bench, his face turned toward the window. Now he wheeled suddenly.
“Does it make so much difference to you?” he asked.
“Yes, it does.”
“Esther—”
“Bob, are you going to tell me any more?”
He took a turn up and down the room. Then he stopped before her. “Esther,” he said, “I will tell you what I can. This is what happened.”
He told of his leaving the hall that night, of his walk along the beach, his stay at the studio, his noticing the Townsend span beside the road. There he hesitated.
“Yes,” she urged. “And then—?”
“Well, then when Covell came along we got to talking. He said some things I didn’t like and—and I told him I didn’t like them. He said them again. I—well, in the midst of it he jumped back against the carriage. The horses started and reared. He fell under their feet. Before I could pull him out of the way the horse had kicked him. It was an accident and nothing more. That is the exact truth. I should like to have you believe it. Do you?”