That sound I have never understood. It could not have been
Scoville since in the short time which had passed, he could not
have fled from the point where I heard him last into the ravine
below Ostrander Lane. But if not he, who was it? Or if it was he,
and some other hand threw his stick across my path, whose was this
hand and why have we never heard anything about it? It is a
question which sometimes floats through my mind, but I did not
give it a thought then. I was within sight of home and Oliver's
possible presence; and all other dread was as nothing in
comparison to what I felt at the prospect of meeting my boy's eye.
My boy's eye! my greatest dread then, and my greatest dread still!
In my terror of it I walked as to my doom.
The house which I had left empty, I found empty; Oliver had not
yet returned. The absolute stillness of the rooms seemed
appalling. Instinctively, I looked up at the clock. It had
stopped. Not at the minute--I do not say it was at the minute--but
near, very near the time when from an innocent man I became a
guilty one. Appalled at the discovery, I fled to the front.
Opening the door, I looked out. Not a creature in sight, and not a
sound to be heard. The road was as lonely and seemingly as
forsaken as the house. Had time stopped here too? Were the world
and its interests at a pause in horror of my deed? For a moment I
believed it; then more natural sensations intervened and,
rejoicing at this lack of disturbance where disturbance meant
discovery, I stepped inside again and went and sat down in my own
room.
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