“I think I understand you,” he said with an effort.
“You don’t! Oh, you don’t!” cried Dolly’s better spirit. “Don’t dare to think of me so!” But the imp controlled the lips with silence.
“Yes, I think I understand,” continued Dick. “I have had little time for my social obligations; but I have seen enough to have met and been sickened by this before. That associations of what we call good society can have so corrupted the view of life in a girl like you—Oh, it seems incredible! Probably because it never happened to hit me personally before.”
The girl went perfectly white under the bitterness of his contempt.
“There is nothing further to say, Dr. Colton,” she said, rising. There were a thousand things to say; but the imp of the perverse would not let her say them. “You have only convinced me that for any woman to be connected with your family would be the direst misfortune.”
When Dick found himself alone there was a blur over his mental vision such as extreme pain brings to the physical eye. The whole wretched scene repeated itself over and over. How readily he could have defended himself with Haynes’ own words against the charge of unmanly treachery to Haynes! How easily he could have refuted!—but to what purpose, since she was unworthy? Hatless and aimless, he wandered out upon the grass-land.
Almost before he knew it he had reached the beach and was approaching Graveyard Point. Coming around a jut in the cliff he was amazed to see Professor Ravenden digging energetically at the sand with an improvised shovel. At once the professor hailed him for help. Now, the normal man, no matter how miserable his mood, will rouse to the solution of a mystery, and when Dick Colton saw the form of a horse partly revealed, he pitched in heartily.
“How did you find it?” he asked the professor.
“In passing I noticed that the cliff had given way above,” was the reply. “As there had been no rain, some unusual occurrence must have caused this. Closer examination revealed the leg of a horse, upon which I inferred that here was buried the mare ridden by my young friend, your brother. Doubtless we soon shall perceive some clue as to the manner of death.”
But the body being wholly uncovered revealed no wound.