"Yes, doing, don't you hear?" She shook his arm violently in her anxious terror.
"I don't know—" the words were a long groan.
"Where have you been then?—quick, tell me—"
He began to shake with a hard nervous chill.
"With him—over in the quarry woods—I tried to take him—he fought me—" The chill shook him till he could scarcely stand.
She dropped his arm; drew away from him as if touching were contamination; then her eyes, dilating with a still greater horror, fixed themselves on the bosom of his shirt—there was a stain—
"Have you killed him—" she whispered hoarsely.
The answer came through the clattering teeth:
"I—I don't know—you said—you said you—never wanted to see him again—"
Luigi found himself speaking the last words to the empty air; he was alone, in the middle of the road, in the full glare of an electric light. He was conscious of a desire to escape from it, to escape detection—to rid himself of his over-powering misery in the quietest way possible. He gathered himself together; his limbs steadied; the shivering grew less; he went on down the road at a quick walk. Already the quarrymen were coming out in force to see what might be up. He must avoid them at all hazards.