He took it
as a portent, almost a menace, he knew not of what. He might have
foreseen that unhappy eventuality, and prevented it, but his brain
refused to work clearly that morning. A terrible and bizarre crime had
bemused his faculties. He seemed to be in a state of waking nightmare.
He was stung into impetuous action by seeing the policeman halt and
exchange some words with the girl. He began to run, with the quite
definite if equally mad intent of punching Robinson into reasonable
behavior. He was saved from an act of unmitigated folly by the girl
herself. She caught sight of him, apparently broke off her talk with the
policeman abruptly, and, in her turn, took to her heels.
Thus, on that strip of sun-baked road, with its easy gradient to the
crown of the bridge, there was the curious spectacle offered by two men
jogging along with a corpse on a stretcher, a young man and a young
woman running towards each other, and a discomfited representative of
the law, looking now one way and now the other, and evidently undecided
whether to go on or return. Ultimately, it would seem, Robinson went
with the stretcher-bearers, because Grant and the girl saw no more of
him for the time.
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