He stooped closer over the dead man.Death had been instantaneous.
Of course there could be no doubt.From one hand a piece of folded paper had fallen.
Dunn picked it up, and saw that there was writing on it, and he read it over slowly.
"Dear Mr.Clive, - Can you meet me as before by the oak tomorrow at eleven? There is something I very much want to say to you.- Yours sincerely, "ELLA CAYLEY."Was that, then, the lure which had brought John Clive to meet his death? Was this the bait that had made him disregard the warnings he had received, and come alone to so quiet and solitary a spot?
Dunn had a moment of quick envy of him; he lay so quiet and still in the warm sunshine, with nothing to trouble or distress him any more for ever.
Then, stumblingly and heavily, Dunn turned an went away, and his eyes were very hard, his bearded face set like iron.
Like a man in a dream, or one obsessed by some purpose before which all other things faded into nothingness, he went his way, the way Ella had taken in her flight - through the wood, through the spinney to the public foot-path, and then out on the road that led to Bittermeads.
When he entered the garden there, he saw Ella sitting quietly on a deck-chair close to her mother, quietly busy with some fancy work.
He could not believe it; he stood watching in bewilderment, appalled and wondering, watching her white hands flashing busily to and fro, hearing the soft murmur of her voice as now and then she addressed some remark to her mother, who nodded drowsily in the sunshine over a book open on her knees.
Ella was dressed all in white; she had flung aside her hat, and the quiet breeze played in her fair hair, and stirred gently a stray curl that had escaped across her broad low brow.
The picture was one of gentleness and peace and an innocence that thought no wrong, and yet with his own eyes he had seen her not an hour ago fleeing with hurried steps and fearful looks from the spot where lay a murdered man.
Somewhat unsteadily, for he felt so little master of himself, it was as though he had no longer even control of his own limbs, Dunn stumbled forward, and Ella looked up and saw him, and saw also that he was looking at her very strangely.
She rose and came towards him, her needlework still in her hands.
"What is the matter?" she said in a voice of some concern."Are you ill?""No," he answered."No.I've been looking for Mr.Clive.""Have you?" she said, a little surprised apparently, but in no way flustered or disturbed."Did you find him?"Dunn did not answer, for indeed he could not, and she said again:
"Did you find him?"
Still he made no answer, for it seemed to him those four words were the most awful that any one had ever uttered since the beginning of the world.
"What is the matter?" she said again."Is anything the matter?""Oh, no, no," he said, and he gave himself a little shake like a man wakening from deep sleep and trying to remember where he was.
"Well, then," she said.
"I found Mr.Clive," he said hardly and abruptly.And he repeated again: "Yes, I found him."They remained standing close together and facing each other, and he saw her as through a veil of red, and it was as though a red mist enveloped her, and where her shadow lay the earth was red, he thought, and where she put her foot it seemed to him red tracks remained, and never before had he understood how utterly he loved her and must love her, now and for evermore.
But he uttered no sound and made no movement, only stood very still, thinking to himself how dreadful it was that he loved her so greatly.
She was not paying him, any attention now.A rose bush was near by, and she picked one of the flowers, and arranged it carefully at her waist.
She said, still looking at him:
"Do you know - I wish you would shave yourself?""Why?" he mumbled.
"I should like to see you," she answered."I think I have a curiosity to see you.""I should think you could do that well enough," he said in the same low, mumbled tones.
"No," she answered."I can only see some very untidy hair and a pair of eyes - not very nice eyes, rather frightening eyes.Ishould like to see the rest of your face some day so as to know what it's like.""Perhaps you shall - some day," he said.
"Is that a threat?" she asked."It sounded like one.""Perhaps," he answered.
She laughed lightly and turned away.
"You make me very curious," she said."But then, you 'ye always done that."She went back to her seat by her mother, and he walked on moodily to the house.
Mrs.Dawson said to Ella:
"How can you talk to that man, my dear? I think he looks perfectly dreadful - hardly like a human being.""I was just telling him he ought to shave himself," said Ella.
"I told him I should like to know what he was really like.""I shall ask father," said Mrs.Dawson sternly, "to make it a condition of his employment here."
