The Lady of the Bureau came out; moved, no doubt, by an image of a drowned man whose resources would not meet the credits she might be compelled to give him. She came out to the front through the swing-door, looked up and down the road, and seemed to go back happier. Dr. Conrad's curiosity was roused, and he started at once for the beach, but absolutely without a trace of personal misgiving. No doubt the tendency we all have to impute public mishaps to a special class of people outside
our own circle had something to do with this. As he passed down an alley behind some cottages—a short way to the pier—he was aware of a boy telling a tale in a terrified voice to a man and an elderly woman. It was the man with the striped shirt, and the boy was young Benjamin. He had passed on a few paces when the man called to him, and came running after him, followed by the woman and boy.
"I ask your pardon, sir—I ask your pardon...." What he has to say will not allow him to speak, and his words will not come. He turns for help to his companion. "You tell him, Martha woman," he says, and gives in.
"My master thinks, sir, you may find something on the beach...."
"Something on the beach!..." Fear is coming into Dr. Conrad's face and voice.
"Find something has happened on the beach. But they've got him out...."
"Got him out! Got whom out? Speak up, for Heaven's sake!"
"It might be the gentleman you know, sir, and...." But the speaker's husband, having left the telling to his wife, unfairly strikes in here, to have the satisfaction of lightening the communication. "But he's out safe, sir. You may rely on the yoong lad." He has made it harder for his wife to tell the rest, and she hesitates. But Dr. Conrad has stayed for no more. He is going at a run down the sloped passage that leads to the sea. The boy follows him, and by some dexterous use of private thoroughfares, known to him, but not to the doctor, arrives first, and is soon visible ahead, running towards the scattered groups that line the beach. The man and woman follow more slowly.
Few of those who read this, we hope, have ever had to face a shock so appalling as the one that Conrad Vereker sustained when he came to know what it was that was being carried up the beach from the boat that had just been driven stern on to the shingle, as he emerged to a full view of the sea and the running crowd, thickening as its last stragglers arrived to meet it. But most of us who are not young have unhappily had some experience of the sort, and many will recognise (if we can describe it) the feeling that was his in excess when a chance bystander—not
unconcerned, for no one was that—used in his hearing a phrase that drove the story home to him, and forced him to understand. "It's the swimming girl from Lobjoit's, and she's drooned." It was as well, for he had to know. What did it matter how he became the blank thing standing there, able to say to itself, "Then Sally is dead," and to attach their meaning to the words, but not to comprehend why he went on living? One way of learning the thing that closes over our lives and veils the sun for all time is as good as another; but how came he to be so colourlessly calm about it?