A fresh shock awaited me. I could hardly
believe my eyes. It was NOT Le Geyt--no, nor anything like him!
Nevertheless, the man rose with a little cry and advanced, half
crouching, towards me. "YOU are not hunting me down--with the police?"
he exclaimed, his neck held low and his forehead wrinkling.
The voice--the voice was Le Geyt's. It was an unspeakable mystery.
"Hugo," I cried, "dear Hugo--hunting you down?--COULD you imagine it?"
He raised his head, strode forward, and grasped my hand. "Forgive me,
Cumberledge," he cried. "But a proscribed and hounded man! If you knew
what a relief it is to me to get out on the water!"
"You forget all there?"
"I forget IT--the red horror!"
"You meant just now to drown yourself?"
"No! If I had meant it I would have done it.... Hubert, for my
children's sake, I WILL not commit suicide!"
"Then listen!" I cried. I told him in a few words of his sister's
scheme--Sebastian's defence--the plausibility of the explanation--the
whole long story. He gazed at me moodily. Yet it was not Hugo!
"No, no," he said, shortly; and as he spoke it was HE. "I have done it;
I have killed her; I will not owe my life to a falsehood.
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