"Yes, I see what you're driving at."
"Well, whether he keeps it in his hand or doesn't, there's some misstep on his part or hers, just as he says, or just the motion of the two bodies, causes the boat to go over, and he strikes her, or not, just as you think fit, but accidentally, of course."
"Yes, I see, and I'll be damned!" exclaimed Belknap. "Fine, Reuben! Excellent! Wonderful, really!"
"And the boat strikes her too, as well as him, a little, see?" went on Jephson, paying no attention to this outburst, so interested was he in his own plot, "and makes him a little dizzy, too."
"I see."
"And he hears her cries and sees her, but he's a little stunned himself, see? And by the time he's ready to do something——"
"She's gone," concluded Belknap, quietly. "Drowned. I get you."
"And then, because of all those other suspicious circumstances and false registrations—and because now she's gone and he can't do anything more for her, anyhow—her relatives might not want to know her condition, you know——"
"I see."
"He slips away, frightened, a moral coward, just as we'll have to contend from the first, anxious to stand well with his uncle and not lose his place in this world. Doesn't that explain it?"