"How did you find out?"
He was an inexpert liar. Under the witchery of her eyes, his resource failed him absolutely. He started to repeat, stammered, fell still, and then in a breath capitulated.
"Before you were up—I meant to keep this from you—down there on the beach—I found Drummond."
"Drummond!"
It was a cry of terror. She started back from him, eyes wide, cheeks whitening.
"I'm sorry.... But I presume you ought to know.... His body ... I buried it...."
She gave a little smothered cry, and seemed to shrink in upon herself, burying her face in her hands—an incongruous, huddled shape of grief, there upon the gray stone wall, set against all the radiant beauty of the exquisite, sun-gladdened world.
He was patient with her, though the slow-dragging minutes during which she neither moved nor made any sound brought him inexpressible distress, and he seemed to age visibly, his face, settling in iron lines, gray with suffering.
At length a moan—rather, a wail—came from the stricken figure beside him:
"Ah, the pity of it! the pity of it!... What have I done that this should come to me!"