The on'y real necessity is to have it done before Norah comes
home."
And again he thought of the finger of God. This clumsy hurried
execution had been refused by God. He was being pushed away, so that
the last glimpse of his eyes should not see the pleasant picture of
home.
He must do it privately, secretly, in a lonely spot; and he must spare
no pains, must plot and scheme till he contrived all the convincing
details of a likely accident. That was how he had killed Everard
Barradine; and he must arrange matters similarly for himself.
XXXIV
Two or three days passed. The busy yet peaceful life of home and
fields was going on; the hay had been carried; the rick was made, and
the rick-sheet covered a handsome pile.
Dale worked hard, quite in his old untiring way, and seemed just his
natural self; but truly he was mentally detached from the surrounding
scene. For the second time in his life, and to a greater extent than
the first time, he was subjugated and controlled by one dominant idea.
Throughout each day all things around him were dreamlike and
unsubstantial, and he performed many actions as automatically as if he
had been a somnambulist. He walked and talked or rode on the shaft of
a wagon without in the least troubling to think what he was doing, and
every time his thought became active it seemed to spring into vigor
again merely to obey the prompting of the inner voice that now
governed him.
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