Etheridge when
I met him. And now for Fate's final and most fatal touch! Nothing
which came into my mind struck me quite favourably. The encounter
which seemed such a very simple matter when I first contemplated
it, began to assume quite a different aspect as the moment for it
approached. By the time I had come abreast of the Hollow, I was
tired of the whole business, and hearing his whistle and knowing
by it that he was very near, I plunged up the slope to avoid him,
and hurried straight away into town. That is my story, father. If
I heard your steps approaching as I plunged across the path into
which I had thrown the stick in my anger at having broken the
point of my knife-blade upon it, I thought nothing of them then.
Afterwards I believed them to be Scoville's, which may account to
you for my silence about this whole matter both before and during
the trial. I was afraid of the witness-stand and of what might be
elicited from me if I once got into the hands of the lawyers. My
abominable reticence in regard to his former crime would be
brought up against me, and I was yet too young, too shy and
uninformed to face such an ordeal of my own volition. Unhappily, I
was not forced into it, and--But we will not talk of that,
father."
"Son,"--a long silence had intervened,--"there is one thing more.
When--how--did you first learn my real reason for sending you from
home? I saw that my position was understood by you when our eyes
first met in this room.
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