“And you thought they would find him lying there dead and know you had killed him and hunt you down for a murderer?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Peter! So you pushed that great stone out of the edge of the bluff into the river to make them think you had fallen over and drowned––and threw your things down, too, to make it seem as if you both were dead.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Peter! What a terrible mistake! How you must have suffered!”
“Yes, as cowards suffer.”
They stood for a moment with clasped hands, looking into each other’s eyes. “Then it was true what Richard told me? You did not love me, Betty?” He had grown calmer, and he spoke very tenderly. “We must have all the truth now and conceal nothing.”
“Not quite––true. I––I––thought I did. You were so handsome! I was only a child then––and I thought I loved you––or that I ought to––for any girl would––I was so romantic in those days––and you had been wounded––and it was like a romance––”
“And then?”
“And then Richard came, and I knew in one instant that 417 I had done wrong––and that I loved him––and oh, I felt myself so wicked.”