They pulled up soon at the railway
station. There was a good crowd round the booking-office, so I
got quite close to them without being seen. They took tickets
for New Brighton. So did I, but I got in three carriages behind
them. When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was
never more than a hundred yards from them. At last I saw them
hire a boat and start for a row, for it was a very hot day, and
they thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler on the water.
"'It was just as if they had been given into my hands. There was
a bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred
yards. I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I
could see the blur of their craft, but they were going nearly as
fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the shore
before I caught them up. The haze was like a curtain all round
us, and there were we three in the middle of it. My God, shall I
ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat that
was closing in upon them? She screamed out. He swore like a
madman and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death
in my eyes. I got past it and got one in with my stick that
crushed his head like an egg. I would have spared her, perhaps,
for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out
to him, and calling him "Alec." I struck again, and she lay
stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had
tasted blood.
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