Charles was too frightened and bewildered to remember anything about the hare hunt. He did not know where he was, what he was doing, against whom he had flung himself. The horse plunged, bounded aside, and cast his rider from his back. Charles stood with one hand to his head looking vacantly at the road and the prostrate figure in it. In another moment Mrs. Veale was at his elbow. 'What have you done?' she gasped, 'You fool! what have you done?'
Charles had sufficiently recovered himself to understand what had taken place.
'It is the hare hunt,' he said. 'Do you hear them? The dogs! This is—my God! it is Larry Nanspian. He is dead. I said I would break his neck, and I have done it. But I did not mean it. I did not intend to frighten the horse. I—I'—and he burst into tears.
'You are a fool,' said Mrs. Veale angrily. 'What do you mean staying here?' She took the horn from the prostrate Larry and blew it. 'Don't let them turn and find you here by his dead body. If you will not go, I must, though I had no hand in killing him.' She snatched the lantern from his hand and extinguished it. 'That ever I had to do with such an one as you! Be off, as you value your neck; do not stay. Be off! If you threatened Larry and have fulfilled your threat, who will believe that this was accident?'
Charles, who had been overcome by weakness for a moment, was nerved again by fear.
'Take his head,' said Mrs. Veale, 'lay him on the turf, among the dark gorse, where he mayn't be seen all at once, and that will give you more time to get off.'
'I cannot take his head,' said Charles, trembling.
'Then take his heels. Do as I bid,' ordered the housekeeper. She bent and raised Larry.
'Sure enough,' she said, 'his neck is broken. He'll never speak another word.'
Charles let go his hold of the feet. 'I will not touch him,' he said. 'I will not stay. I wish I'd never come to Langford. It was all Honor's fault forcing me. I must go.'