and she uttered a frightened cry
at sight of him perched high in the tree.

"Oh, dads, do take care!"

Next moment her mother came to the window; and they stood side by
side, each with a hand to her eyes, watching him in the same attitude
of anxiety.

"Don't speak to him," whispered Mavis; and Dale heard the whisper as
clearly as if it had been close against his ear.

He could not do it before them. He had been too slow about it; he
could not darken their lives with the visible horror of it. And it
seemed to him that he had not sufficiently thought of its effect upon
them. The whole thing had been clumsily planned. Just at first, when
he was found hanging dead with the saw dangling from his neck, it
might have been believed that he had slipped and fallen, and hanged
himself by accident; but afterward all would have known that it was
suicide. The truth would have been betrayed by the running noose, by
recollections of Mr. Bates, and by everybody's knowledge of an ancient
local custom.

"All right," he said. "Don't alarm yourselves, my dears. I must give
this job up, Mavis. I can't quite reach where I wanted to."

"Mind how you come down," said Mavis. "Do come down carefully."

"Yes, dads," said Rachel, "do _please_ come down carefully."

He climbed down slowly, feeling no joy in his respite, saying to
himself: "I must think of some other way. I must finish with the
hay-making, get the rick complete, and clear up everything in the
office--so's at least poor Mav'll find things all ship-shape when she
has to take over and manage without me. My hurry to get it through was
selfishness; for, after all, I've best part of three weeks to do it
in. 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