The grass plot, where he had first found the half-wild girl, lay before him brightly illumined by the moon. The spot where she had begun to dig the grave stood out in uncanny blackness from the rest of the shining turf.
If only he had shovelled the corpse into it and gone on his way, perhaps somewhere at the other end of the world some sort of happiness might still have been in store for him.
But now it was too late. Now all he could do was to endure--to complete the work of defiance begun to-day under such gloomy circumstances. Desolate and alone till the end. Never to feel again the clasp of a friendly hand, never to look with trust and affection into any human face, since the doughty comrades he had so firmly believed in had recoiled from him shuddering.
And had not the beloved shrunk from him too in horror? It seemed clear now for the first time why she had avoided him and hidden herself.
He was cut adrift from all the joys and sorrows that form a common bond between the hearts of men--cut adrift from love, hope, compassion, from everything but ignominy and hate.
With his face buried in his hands, he staggered over the lawn in the direction of the gardener's cottage, when his foot struck against something round and soft that lay across the path. It was the figure of a woman, lying with her head buried in the dry leaves and her limbs outstretched. Regina--positively it was Regina!
There was not a sound or a movement. Where had he seen her last? Ah! to be sure; under the churchyard gateway, screening him from the gun that was pointed at his brain. That ghastly moment came back to him with all its terrors. For his sake she had flung herself on the murderer; for his sake risked her life. And how had he rewarded her? He had pushed carelessly past her; consigned her to the mercy of the murderous, bloodthirsty crew who were greedy to take her life, without a shadow of a thought of how he might save her troubling him for an instant. Even if she were the most abandoned creature on the face of the earth, she had not deserved such dastardly treatment at his hands. Certainly she had not.
He bent over her and raised her, but her head fell back lifeless among the bushes. There was blood on his fingers from touching her. Her hair was damp and matted.