He dropped his glasses, but quickly raised them again. There was no doubt about it. Muhlen was no longer there. He had disappeared. Mrs. Meadows was walking down towards her villa, in sprightly fashion, alone.
Mr. Heard felt sick. Not knowing exactly what he was about, he began to shake Denis with needless violence. The young man turned round lazily, flushed in the face.
"Where—what—" he began. "Rather funny! You saw it too? Oh, Lord! You've woke me up. What a bother…. Why, Mr. Heard, what's the matter with you? Aren't you feeling well?"
The bishop pulled himself together, savagely.
"Touch of the sun, I daresay. Africa, you know! Perhaps we ought to be going. Give me your arm, Denis, like a good boy. I want to get down."
He was dazed in mind, and his steps faltered. But his brain was sufficiently clear to realize that his was face to face with an atrocious and carefully planned murder.
CHAPTER XXXIV
All the traditions of his race, the uprightness of ages of decent law-abiding culture, the horror of the pure for what is impure rebelled against this thing which nothing but the testimony of his own eyes could have made him believe. He felt humiliated, as though he had received a blow; inclined to slink about and hide his face from other men. There was contamination in the mere fact of having been a witness. Oh, it was villainous. How carefully the hour and place had been chosen!
And he himself, during that evening walk, had given her the idea. He had said how easily a man could be thrown over at that spot. Very simple….
His mind would clear up, maybe, in course of time. Meanwhile he remembered about Retlow-ALIASMuhlen. It came to him in a flash. The man was his cousin's first husband; possibly her only legal husband, seeing that she may not have been able to secure sufficient evidence against him to justify a divorce—had, indeed, lost sight of the scoundrel altogether for several years prior to her elopement with young Meadows. It might well be that Muhlen had heard somehow or other of her presence on Nepenthe, and gone there for the purpose of renewing acquaintance with her. But this foul crime! For it cannot have been a sudden impulse on her part. She had been playing with him—leading him on. His visits to the Old Town, at that quiet hour of the day…. No. She had carried out her infamous plan after ample premeditation.