The two finders of this silent tragedy stood up and looked around them.
It was almost dark. They were ten miles from a habitation. It does not
sound much; but a traveller would be hard put to place ten miles between
himself and a habitation in the whole of the British Islands. This,
added to a lack of road or path which is unknown to us in England, made
ten miles of some importance.

Steinmetz had pushed his fur cap to the back of his head, which he was
scratching pensively. He had a habit of scratching his forehead with one
finger, which denoted thought.

"Now, what are we to do?" he muttered. "Can't bury the poor chap and say
nothing about it. I wonder where his passport is? We have here a
tragedy."

He turned to the horse, which was grazing hurriedly.

"My friend of the four legs," he said, "it is a thousand pities that you
are dumb."

Paul was still examining the dead man with that callousness which
denotes one who, for love or convenience, has become a doctor. He was a
doctor--an amateur. He was a Caius man.

Steinmetz looked down at him with a little laugh. He noticed the
tenderness of the touch, the deft fingering which had something of
respect in it. Paul Alexis was visibly one of those men who take mankind
seriously, and have that in their hearts which for want of a better word
we call sympathy.