things had been found in the rocks, but I did not think they were going
to these. I saw them climb down the rocky steps; and presently they were
lost to view. The gates of the slide could be opened by machinery from
the Little Mill. A terrible, deliciously malignant thought came to me.
I remember how the sunlight crept away from me and left me in the dark.
I stole through that darkness to the Little Mill. I went to the
machinery for opening the gates. Very gently I set it in motion, facing
the slide as I did so. I could see it through the open sides of the
mill. I smiled to think what the tiny creek, always creeping through a
faint leak in the gates and falling with a granite rattle on the stones,
would now become. I pushed the lever harder--harder. I saw the gates
suddenly give, then fly open, and the river sprang roaring massively
through them. I heard a shriek through the roar. I shuddered; and a
horrible sickness came on me. . . . And as I turned from the
machinery, I saw the young priest coming at me through a doorway! . . .
It was not the priest and my wife that I had killed; but my wife and her
brother. . . ."

He threw his head back as though something clamped his throat. His voice
roughened with misery. "The young priest buried them both, and people
did not know the truth. They were even sorry for me. But I gave up the
mills--all; and I became homeless . . . this."

Now he looked up at the two men, and said: "I have told you because you
know something, and because there will, I think, be an end soon." He got
up and reached out a trembling hand for a cigarette. Pierre gave him
one. "Will you walk with me?" he asked.

Shon shook his head. "God forgive you," he replied, "I can't do it."