My own room!  Was it mine any longer?  Its walls looked strange; the petty objects of my daily handling, unfamiliar.  The change in myself infected everything I saw.  I might have been in another man’s house for all connection these things seemed to have with me or my life.  Like one set apart on an unapproachable shore, I stretched hands in vain towards all that I had known and all that had been of value to me.

But as the minutes passed, as the hands of the clock I had hastily rewound moved slowly round the dial, I began to lose this feeling.  Hope which I thought quite dead slowly revived.  Nothing had happened, and perhaps nothing would.  Men had been killed before, and the slayer passed unrecognised.  Why might it not be so in my case?  If the woman continued to remain silent; if for any reason she had not witnessed the blow or the striker, who else was there to connect me with an assault committed a quarter of a mile away?  No one knew of the quarrel; and if they did, who could be so daring as to associate one of my name with an action so brutal?  A judge slay his friend!  It would take evidence of a very marked character to make even my political enemies believe that.

As the twilight deepened I rose from my seat and lit the gas.  I must not be found skulking in the dark.  Then I began to count the ticks measuring off the hour.  If thirty minutes more passed without a rush from without, I might hope.  If twenty?—­if ten?—­ then it was five! then it was—­Ah, at last!  The gate had clanged to.  They were coming.  I could hear steps—­voices—­a loud ring at the bell.  Laying down the pen I had taken, up mechanically, I moved slowly towards the front.  Should I light the hall gas as I went by?  It was a natural action, and, being natural, would show unconcern.  But I feared the betrayal which my ashy face and trembling hands might make.  Agitation after the news was to be expected, but not before!  So I left the hall dark when I opened the door.

And thus decided my future.

For in the faces of the small crowd which blocked the doorway, I detected nothing but commiseration; and when a voice spoke and I heard Oliver’s accents surcharged with nothing more grievous than pity, I realised that my secret was as yet unshared, and seeing that no man suspected me, I forebore to declare my guilt to any one.

This sudden restoration from soundless depths into the pure air of respect and sympathy confused me; and beyond the words killed!  Struck down by the bridge!  I heard little, till slowly, dully like the call of a bell issuing from a smothering mist, I caught the sound of a name and then the words, “He did it just for the watch;” which hardly conveyed meaning to me, so full was I of Oliver’s look and Oliver’s tone and the way his arm supported me as he chided them for their abruptness and endeavoured to lead me away.

But the name!  It stuck in my ear and gradually it dawned upon my consciousness that another man had been arrested for my crime and that the safety, the reverence and the commiseration that were so dear to me had been bought at a price no man of honour might pay.