He had been too slow about it; he
could not darken their lives with the visible horror of it. And it
seemed to him that he had not sufficiently thought of its effect upon
them. The whole thing had been clumsily planned. Just at first, when
he was found hanging dead with the saw dangling from his neck, it
might have been believed that he had slipped and fallen, and hanged
himself by accident; but afterward all would have known that it was
suicide. The truth would have been betrayed by the running noose, by
recollections of Mr. Bates, and by everybody's knowledge of an ancient
local custom.
"All right," he said. "Don't alarm yourselves, my dears. I must give
this job up, Mavis. I can't quite reach where I wanted to."
"Mind how you come down," said Mavis. "Do come down carefully."
"Yes, dads," said Rachel, "do _please_ come down carefully."
He climbed down slowly, feeling no joy in his respite, saying to
himself: "I must think of some other way. I must finish with the
hay-making, get the rick complete, and clear up everything in the
office--so's at least poor Mav'll find things all ship-shape when she
has to take over and manage without me. My hurry to get it through was
selfishness; for, after all, I've best part of three weeks to do it
in.
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