CHAPTER XIV“Don’t touch her!” cried Mr. Fredericks. “Wait until the police—”
“I’ve got to see…” said Miss Peterson. She knelt on the sand and groped in the dark; she found a wrist, very thin and very cold. She could feel no pulse.
“Dead?” asked Mr. Fredericks, very low.
“I think so,” Miss Peterson answered, rising.
“Then,” he said, “my case is proved.”
She heard him, but without understanding. It was as if the shock of this discovery had broken her mind up into the tiny bright prisms of a kaleidoscope; thoughts were twinkling in her head, but they made no sense. The sea, she thought, was coming closer, with a strange quiet rushing sound; she was suddenly afraid it would lay up the row-boat and take it away. She turned toward the hotel.
“My case is proved now,” Mr. Fredericks said aga
