She raised her haunted brown eyes to his face.
"I can't! I can't hear anything any more but the sound of that dreadful river! It was like a voice, mocking us. And he was so brave!" She caught her breath with a long, shuddering sob, but no tears came.
"I am glad that he loved me," she said again presently. "It is something to be proud of—always—that Feathers loved me."
Chris could not bear to look at her tragic face She had no thought for him, he knew, but she had never been so inexpressibly dear to him as she was now.
He was at his wits' end to know what to do with her. It was impossible to take her home with Miss Chester lying dead in the house, and there seemed nobody to whom he could turn for help.
Presently, he said gently:
"I shall have to run up to Town this afternoon—only for an hour or two. I shall come back as soon as possible. You don't mind, Marie?"
"Oh, no!" She seemed surprised at the question. "I shall be quite all right."
But still he lingered. He longed to put his arms round her and speak the many wild, passionate words of remorse and grief that trembled on his lips, but the new inexplicable aloofness of that girlish figure held him back.
"You are quite sure you don't mind being left?" he asked again. He longed for her to say that she wanted him to stay, but Marie only shook her head.