brute in him that he had permitted to drag him
to this thing.

Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame
him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most
cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.

Now, it was a terror for himself. What would they do to him? His part in
the affair was sure to be found out. He tried to think what the
punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a
murderer as well? Could he not hang for this? His imagination was never
more active; his fear never more keen. At once a thousand plans of
concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.

But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there
was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his
crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no
matter how it was palliated or evaded here. Then for an instant it was
as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight
himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation. To look too long
in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.

And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long
white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far
over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all
straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning
terror would come upon him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that
he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his
scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in
the throes of terrible mental agony.

That day and the next were fearful. To Vandover everything in his world
was changed. All that had happened before the morning of Geary's visit
appeared to him to have occurred in another phase of his life, years and
years ago. He lay awake all night long, listening to the creaking of the
house and the drip of the water faucets. He turned from his food with
repugnance, told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much
as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To
his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was
subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that
her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew
anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best
to cover up the