Of a sudden, while standing there not daring to breathe lest I should betray my presence, a strange sound fell upon my eager ears.
Next moment I realized that I was at that place where Leithcourt so persistently kept his disappointed tryst, having approached it from within the wood.
The sound alarmed me, and yet it was neither an explosion of fire-arms nor a startling cry for help.
One word reached me in the darkness—one single word of bitter and withering reproach.
Heedless of the risk I ran and the peril to which I exposed myself, I dashed forward with a resolve to penetrate the mystery, until I came to the gap in the rough stone wall where Leithcourt's habit was to halt each day at sundown.
There, in the falling darkness, the sight that met my eyes at the spot held me rigid, appalled, stupefied.
In that instant I realized the truth—a truth that was surely the strangest ever revealed to any man.