awful deed I should be proscribed as a murderer, and the charge would dog my footsteps wherever I went and rest on me always, till I should be dragged perhaps to a felon's death. These thoughts flashed like lightning through my mind in the seconds that followed, crazing, bewildering, and frightening me till the drops stood cold and thick on my brow and my hands grew clammy with the dew of fear.
Then came the sounds of men running on the gravel outside, and I listened to them in positively fascinated, helpless irresolution.
Another second and the men were knocking loudly at the house door; and still I could not move. My feet were chained by a palsy of fear to the floor, my breath came in gasps so that I was like to choke, and when the knocking was repeated I could do no more than turn and stare helplessly in the direction of the sound like a crazy idiot. My brain seemed to have stayed every function except to fill me with this awesome conviction of deadly inevitable peril.
The knocking was repeated for the third time, and I heard the voices of the men calling to be admitted. I felt that in a minute more the end must come, and still I could do nothing but stare in imbecile apathy and wait for it.
Never can I efface the horror of that terrible moment.
Then suddenly it seemed to pass. I thought clearly again, the instincts of self-preservation reasserted themselves, and I cursed myself for the invaluable time I had lost.
But it might not even now be too late.
