"I'm bound to tell someone. I believe, if you hadn't come, I should have made a clean breast of it to the Mayor."
"You might do worse. The Mayor is a man of sagacity. This young woman seems very unreasonable."
"Well, Phil, you must allow for the delicacy of her----"
"You called it infernal nonsense yourself just now."
"I wish, Phil, you'd call at the Grange and see her, and tell me what you think about her."
"I can't do any good, but I'll go, if you like."
Accordingly he went, and did, as he expected, no good at all. Janet had resumed her ordinary manner, with an additional touch or two of vivacity and loquaciousness, which betrayed the uneasiness they were meant to hide. The only subjects she discussed were the last new novel and Tora Smith's wedding, and Philip took his leave, entirely unenlightened. The Squire offered to walk part of the way with him and they set out together.
The Squire stopped at the scene of the disaster. Pointing with his toe to a spot by the side of the drive:
"That's where that mad wretch stood, holding my poor girl," he said.
"And where was Dale?" he asked, for it was his first visit to the spot.
The Squire was delighted to be _cicerone_.
"He was standing with his back to that tree yonder, about fifteen yards off, looking due north, toward the house, thinking of a poem or some nonsense, I suppose."
"Well, then," pursued the Squire, "you see he was almost in a straight line with Roberts--Roberts' barrel must have pointed straight toward Denborough church spire. After the first shot Bannister sprang forward--the gravel was soft, and we saw every footprint--to where Miss Fane fell, and----"
The Squire's toe indicated a spot about three yards from the tree.
"She was running up from behind Bannister, you know, and had just got across the line of fire when the bullet caught her. She fell forward on her face,--she was bound to, Spink said, from the way she was hit,--and Bannister just got his arm under her, to break her fall."
"She was running toward him, I suppose, to warn him?"
"To get between him and Roberts, like the noble girl she is, no doubt; but she seemed to have turned round on hearing the shot, because, to judge from the way she was lying, she was, at the moment she fell, heading almost south."