So while her mother was joining in commiseration of old Stephen, towards whom she herself felt rather brutal, she was casting about for some means of coming at the truth. Irene was no good, however altruistic her motives might be for story-telling.... No!--his eyes looked at her in quite another fashion that evening at Arthur's Bridge, in the light of the sunset. She _must_ get at the truth, come what might!
She left her mother to express sympathy for old Stephen, remaining rather obdurately silent; checking a wish to say that it served the old man right for meddling with loaded guns. She waited for the subject to die down, and then recurred to its predecessor. Did Mr. Torrens walk straight from Arthur's Bridge to the Thurrock or go roundabout? She did not really want to know--merely wanted to get him to talk about himself again. He might say something about his sight, by accident.
He replied:--"I did not go absolutely straight. I went first to where a couple of stones--a respectable married couple, I should say--were standing close together in the fern, with big initials cut on them. Their own, I presume." Gwen said she knew them; they were parish boundaries. "Well--probably that hare was trying what it felt like to be in two parishes at once, for he jumped from behind that stone and started for the Thurrock--that's right, isn't it?"
"It was unfortunately just then that the collar broke. I whistled until I felt undignified, and then went straight for the said Thurrock, rather dreading that I should find Achilles awaiting applause for an achievement in--in leporicide, I suppose...."
"I did not. So I waited a little, and was thinking what I had better do next, when the shot came. You can almost see the place from this window." He got up from his chair, standing exactly where he had stood when his sister made his hand point out Arthur's Bridge in blind show. He made a certain amount of pretence that he could see; and, indeed, seemed to do so. No stranger to the circumstances could have detected it. "I couldn't be sure about the place of the stones, though," said he, carefully avoiding direct verbal falsehood; at least, so Irene thought, trembling at his rashness. He went on:--"Oh dear, how doddery one does feel on one's legs after a turn out of this kind!" and fell back in his chair, his sister alone noticing how he touched it with his hand first to locate it. "I shall be better after a cup of tea," said he. And the whole thing was so natural that although he had not said in so many words that he could see anything, the impression that he could was so strong that Gwen could have laughed aloud for joy. "He really does see _something_!" she exclaimed to herself.