No one spoke; matters must have been prearranged, and in sullen silence the detective kept up with the party, who in a body marched toward the house.
To his surprise they did not enter it, but passed through a garden toward a hillside. Here was a small cemetery. They entered the gate, their burden was deposited on the grass, then the different members of the party scattered.
The detective watched the austere old lady who remained by the dead body. He had made it his business to inquire into her peculiarities, and it did not altogether surprise him that she should take an interest in a criminal. But would she allow him to be buried in her private cemetery?
An eerie shiver ran up and down his backbone. He did not like this midnight work. The solemn quietness, the air of respectability and yet of secrecy about this last act of a criminal career offended him and grated against his official sense of propriety.
He approached Captain White, who had just reappeared, carrying a spade in his hand. "You lay out to bury this man?"
"Yes."
"I protest—" the detective was just beginning when Captain White put up his hand.
"Hush up; wait a bit."
Several lanterns stood about on the grass, and some one had hung the largest of them on the projecting toe of Louis Gastonguay's granite boot. By the reddish yellow glare of this light on the monument, H. Robinson saw a white figure approaching. The white figure was supported by a dark one. Ah, here was the daughter. She certainly was no shady character, and his eye ran critically over her snowy figure.
But what distress!—he had never seen anything like it, and a secret thrill pervaded him. That little beauty had lost her father. Bank robber or no bank robber, he must have been all the world to her. What would she say if she knew he had been the one to run him down? and he uneasily stepped behind one of the Scotchmen from the yacht.