aw the carpet-bag and remembered it, and in that instant a
pang of horrid doubt and fear passed through him and he looked around
for Ringfield. Escape from death gave him additional courage and
sharpened his wits; his brain cleared now and did him good service, he
felt himself a man, able to resist and proud to endure, and he hoped to
meet the parson and demand explanations from him, for he could scarcely
be blamed for divining some connexion between the deadly gap in the
bridge and the carefully planted decoy--the carpet-bag. Yet in this
induction he was wrong. The hole under the snow had not been known to
Ringfield and the bag had been left by him in a certain position of
safety while he was inside the little church--nothing more. Even as
Crabbe was standing with growing wrath and gathering resolution in his
expression and demeanour Ringfield walked out and confronted him.

Hatred, nothing less, looked forth from his lowering brows and bitter
mouth, and he was met by answering hate, wedded to cruel scorn, in the
guide. The latter spoke first.

"Do you know what has nearly happened?" he cried with a fine tempest of
wrath kindling in his usually contemptuous manner. "I could have you
arrested, more than that, my good sir, Mr. Methodist
Parson!--convicted, perhaps worse, for the trap you led me into! You
and your bag--confound you!"

Ringfield, who could hardly look more miserable on this accusation than
he did already from illness and other causes, made some dumb motion
with his hands and started as he perceived the traces of struggle about
the other.

"My bag? The carpet-bag? What has that to do with you, with us? What
are you talking of? What trap? I know nothing of any trap."

"Do you know nothing of a man caught there in the middle of the bridge
where the footway has fallen out--do you know nothing of that man
struggling to lift himself up from that cursed hole and crying for
help? You know nothing, do you?"

Ringfield's surprise was genuine, as Crabbe was beginning to see.

"Certainly I know nothing, have heard nothing. I have been in the
church some time, an hour I should think. A hole----"

Then he remembered.

"The dog!" he cried. "The little dead dog! Now I understand. He must
have fallen through. I wondered at the time how he got out there under
the bridge on top of those rolling logs that carried him over the fall.
Once there, it was impossible to save him. I remember his eyes."