to its amount. Nothing remained to do, nothing but to stand upon the
branch, fix the noose round his neck, and step off into the air.

Lightly and easily he changed his position, stood upon the branch,
holding the stem with his left hand, the noose with his right; and the
life in him pulsed and throbbed with furious strength. It tingled
through and through him, filled him as if he had been a battery
overstored with electricity, shot out at his extremities in lightning
flashes.

In this final position his head had emerged into a leafless space, so
that he could see in all directions; could look down at the house, at
that open window, the kitchen door, and the flagged path; could look
at the barn roofs, the rick-yard, the beehives; could look at his
fields, where the grass lay drying; or could look away at woodland, at
heath, at distant hill. He paused purposely to give himself one last
look round at all he was leaving.

Yes, here was the world--the bitterly sweet world, smiling once more
as it wakes from sleep. Looking down at it he felt an agony of regret.
How intolerably cruel his doom. Why should he of all mortals have been
made to suffer so? But God's law--his own law. Mentally he was
obeying, but physically he was in fierce revolt. Every fiber of him,
every drop of blood, every minute nerve-cell was crying out against
the execution.

The sunlight flowed across the fields in golden waves, the colors of
the flowers sprang out, the soft cool air was like a supremely
magnificent wine that could give old nerveless men the strength of
young giants; and the very marrow of his bones seemed to shrink and
scream for mercy. "Ought to 'a' done it at night," he said to himself.
"Mr. Bates didn't wait till daylight. In the dark--that's it. At the
prisons they give you a bonnet--extinguishing cap; high walls all
round you too; and they do it at the double quick--hoicked out of your
cell and pinioned in one movement, bundled through the shed, and begun
to dance before you can think. Darkness, the sound of a bell, and the
chaplain's whisper, 'Merciful Lord, receive this sinner.' And I've
heard say they stupefy 'em first, make 'em so drunk they don't know
where they are while they shove 'em into nowhere.... Very easy
compared with this set-out;" and he groaned. "O God, you've fairly put
top weight on me--and no mistake."

But he would have done it if he had not heard his daughter's voice.

Rachel had come to the open window,