ashed into a window and loosened the shutters outside. If he only knew
which of the windows it was, there might be a chance of his getting out
by it.

With this possibility before him he took heart again. The sound of the
breaking of the window enabling him to fix his whereabouts, he began
feeling his way toward the unexpected hope of exit. It became the more
urgent to reach it as he guessed by the fumbling of Thor's hands along
the wall that the latter was trying to find the electric button so as to
turn on the light. He groped, therefore, between the tables and
overturned chairs, getting as far from his enemy as possible. If only
his heart wouldn't pound as though about to burst from his body! If only
his breath wouldn't wheeze itself out with the gurgle of water through a
bottle-neck! He couldn't last much longer. He was so nearly spent that
if Thor kept up the attack he must wear him out. In the end he must let
those powerful hands close round his throat, as he had felt them close a
few minutes before, while he strangled without further resistance. He
felt oddly convinced that it would be by means of strangling that Thor's
quiet, awful tenacity of revenge would wreak itself.

* * * * *

During these horrible minutes Thor had the same conviction. All the
force of his excited nerves had seemed to be centering in his hands. If
he could only tear out that tongue which had hardly ever addressed him
except with a sneer since it had begun to lisp! Now that the amazing
opportunity was at hand, he wondered how he could have put it off so
long. That he should do the thing he was bent on might have been written
like a fate. It was like something he had always known, like something
toward which he had been always working. The tenderness with which he
had yearned over Claude ever since the days when they were children
seemed never to have had any other end in view.

So he stalked his prey while the minutes passed--five minutes--ten
minutes--perhaps more, perhaps less--he had lost all count of time. So
he stalked him--through the darkness, round and round, over tables and
chairs, into corners and out of them. The room was sealed; the house was
empty; the grounds were large. They might have been in some subterranean
vault. When the right moment came he would find the button by which to
turn on the light, and then....

Revulsion came from the fact that he had accidentally put his hand on
the butt