ght of the bundle that he had just thrown
into the river; he saw it cleave the flood; he heard the rush of water,
and remembered that the hat which he had forced over the man's face had
been the last thing visible on the surface--a round, strange-looking
thing. He saw the hat quite plainly before him--battered, the rim half
off, and two grease-spots on the crown. It had been a very shabby hat.
Thinking of it, it occurred to him that he could smile now if he chose.
But he did not smile. Meanwhile he had got up the steps. As he opened
the staircase door, he glanced along the dark gallery through which two
had passed a few minutes before, and only one returned. He looked down
at the gray surface of the stream, and again he was sensible of that
singular pressure. He rapidly crept through the large room and down the
steps, and on the ground floor ran up against one of the lodgers in the
caravansera. Both hastened away in different directions without
exchanging a word.

This meeting turned his thoughts into another direction. Was he safe?
The fog still lay thick on the street. No one had seen him go in with
Hippus, no one had recognized him as he went out. The investigation
would only begin when they found the old man in the river. Would he be
safe then?

These thoughts passed through the murderer's mind as calmly as though he
were reading them in a book. Mingled with them came doubts as to whether
he had his cigar-case with him, and as to why he did not smoke a cigar.
He cogitated long about it, and at length found himself returned to his
dwelling. He opened the door; the last time he had opened the door a
loud noise had been heard in the inner room. He listened for it now. He
would give any thing to hear it. A few minutes ago it had been to be
heard. Oh, if those few minutes had never been! Again he felt that
hollow pressure, but more strongly, ever more strongly than before. He
entered the room, the lamp still burned, the fragments of the rum-bottle
lay about the sofa, the bits of broken mirror shone like silver dollars
on the floor. Veitel sat down exhausted. Then it occurred to him that
his mother had often told him a childish story in which silver dollars
fell upon a poor man's floor. He could see the old Jewess sitting at the
hearth, and he, a small boy, standing near her. He could see himself
looking anxiously down on the dark earthen floor, wondering whether the
white dollars would fall down for him. Now he knew--hi