Mr. Withers picked up his hat from the bottom of the boat and leaped ashore, with pale face and trembling limbs.
“A most dreadful experience!” he gasped; “most dreadful!”
“Well, you needn’t take on so,” said Roake, roughly, whose wrath began presently to subside. “It’s no great loss.”
“Sir?”
“It’s no great loss, I say. He was in his own way, and everybody else’s. Being a kind of good-for-nothing, and unable to do anything for himself, I dare say he’s better off where he is.”
“Poor man!” sighed Mr. Withers. “It must be nearly morning now, is it not?”
“I should judge so,” responded Roake. “You were gone a duse of a while with your mischief.”
“I can never forgive myself. But, as I can be of no service here, I will walk back to Dalton. I became chilled while sitting in the boat so long, and the exercise will arouse the circulation of my blood. Good-night, sir.”
And the Reverend Mr. Withers started toward Dalton, uttering exclamations of regret as long as he was within hearing distance of Roake.
He arrived at the hotel just as the inmates of that establishment were rising. He gave a sorrowful account of his adventure, and early in the forenoon left Dalton by rail.