"Yesterday was Sunday and there should have been a service here, but you were absent. How long have you been here? Were you waiting for me?"
"No."
"For him?"
"Yes."
"And he came? Over the bridge?"
In a flash the priest divined, as he thought, the fate of Crabbe.
"Mon Dieu! M'tenant je comprends! The hole I passed and all-but stumbled through! You cut that, you waited to see him fall through and drown! Perhaps he has ceased to struggle! Ah! that is why the crowd is gathering at Poussette's!"
Father Rielle rose to his feet and thrust aside the appealing hands of the other, but the strength exerted in this supreme moment was terrific and the priest could not escape.
"No, no," sobbed Ringfield, dry-eyed and trembling. "I know what you think—that I pushed him over, that I pushed him down, but I did not. I wished to kill him, I wished to put him out of the way, but I had not the courage. He crossed in safety, the hole was not my doing. He stood there on the rock and he lied to me about her, about Miss Clairville, and I struck him and he stumbled and fell."
"You pushed him, God forgive you, I know you pushed! You have killed him and now you are keeping me here. Let me go, let me go!"