Why should it? He had, as it seemed, no personal grudge
against Le Maitre, whose death had been evidently an accident.
A man who bore an office akin to that of magistrate for the islands came
down from a house near the harbour, and the story was repeated to him.
When Caius had listened to the evidence given before this official
personage, hearing the tale again that he had already heard many times
in a few minutes, and told what he himself had seen, he began to wonder
how he could still harbour in his mind the belief in O'Shea's guilt. He
found, too, that none of these people knew enough about Josephine to see
any special interest attaching to the story, except the fact that her
husband, returning from a long voyage, had been drowned almost within
sight of her house. "Ah, poor lady! poor lady!" they said; and thus
saying, and shaking their heads, they dispersed to eat their dinners.
Caius procured the bundle of letters which had come for him by this
first mail of the year. He sauntered along the beach, soon getting out
of sight and hearing of the little community, who were not given to
walking upon a beach that was not in this case a highroad to any place.
He was on the shingle of the bay, and he soon found a nook under a high
black cliff where the sun beat down right warmly. He had not opened his
letters; his mind did not yet admit of old interests.
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