These things alone could give evidence against him; but
who should think of searching for these things? Again and again he had
thought of the bundle at the bottom of the stream, only to laugh at the
wondrous science of discovery which had slunk back baffled by so slight
a mystery, only to fancy the water-rats gnawing the dead man's garments,
and all the oose and slime creeping in and out amongst the folds until
the rotting rags became a very part of the rank river-weeds that crawled
and tangled round them.
He had thought this, and the knowledge that strangers had been busy on
that spot, dragging the water--the dreadful water that had so often
flowed through his dreams--with, not one, but a thousand dead faces
looking up and grinning at him through the stream--the tidings that a
search had been made there, came upon him like a thunderbolt.
"Why did they drag the water?" he cried again.
His daughter was standing at a little distance from him. She had never
gone close up to him, and she had receded a little--involuntarily, as a
woman shrinks away from some animal she is frightened of--whenever he
had approached her. He knew this--yes, amidst every other conflicting
thought, this man was conscious that his daughter avoided him.
"They dragged the water," Margaret said; "I walked about--that
place--under the elms--all the day--only one day--but it seemed to last
for ever and ever.
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