"
Hilda's voice had a ring of certainty. "Then THAT is where we shall find
him, dear! We must look there first. He is sure to revisit just such a
solitary spot by the sea when trouble overtakes him."
Later in the evening, as we were walking home towards Nathaniel's
together, I asked Hilda why she had spoken throughout with such
unwavering confidence. "Oh, it was simple enough," she answered. "There
were two things that helped me through, which I didn't like to mention
in detail before Lina. One was this: the Le Geyts have all of them an
instinctive horror of the sight of blood; therefore, they almost never
commit suicide by shooting themselves or cutting their throats. Marcus,
who shot himself in the gun-room, was an exception to both rules; he
never minded blood; he could cut up a deer. But Hugo refused to be a
doctor, because he could not stand the sight of an operation; and even
as a sportsman he never liked to pick up or handle the game he had shot
himself; he said it sickened him. He rushed from that room last night,
I feel sure, in a physical horror at the deed he had done; and by now
he is as far as he can get from London.
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