But it was he. Yes, it was he. She traced the likeness as we do in a man's son to the man himself.
She fell on her knees beside him and took the wandering hands and kissed them.
He looked at her, through her, with those bright, unseeing eyes, and the burning hands escaped from hers back to their weary work.
Dick, whose eyes had followed Rachel, turned away biting his lip, and sat down in a corner of the kitchen. The keeper and his wife had slipped away into the little scullery.
The Bishop went up to Dick and put his arm round his shoulders. Two tears of pain were standing in Dick's hawk-eyes. He had seen Rachel kiss Hugh's hands. He ground his heel against the brick floor.
The Bishop understood, and understood, too, the sudden revulsion of feeling.
"Poor chap!" said Dick, huskily. "It's frightful hard luck on him to have to go just when she was to have married him. If it had been me I could not have borne it; but then I would have taken care I was not drowned. I'd have seen to that. But it's frightful hard luck on him, all the same."
"I suppose he was taking a short cut across the ice."
"Yes," said Dick, "and he got in where any one who knew the look of ice would have known he would be sure to get in. The keeper watched him cross the ice. It was some time before they could get near him to get him out, and it seems there is some injury."
Dr. Brown came slowly out, half closing the parlor door behind him.