Hush!
It was but five o'clock. He had time enough to reach his own house
unobserved, and before there were many people in the streets, if nothing
had happened so far, tending to his discovery. He slipped down from
the coach without troubling the driver to stop his horses; and hurrying
across the road, and in and out of every by-way that lay near his
course, at length approached his own dwelling. He used additional
caution in his immediate neighbourhood; halting first to look all
down the street before him; then gliding swiftly through that one, and
stopping to survey the next, and so on.
The passage-way was empty when his murderer's face looked into it. He
stole on, to the door on tiptoe, as if he dreaded to disturb his own
imaginary rest.
He listened. Not a sound. As he turned the key with a trembling hand,
and pushed the door softly open with his knee, a monstrous fear beset
his mind.
What if the murdered man were there before him!
He cast a fearful glance all round. But there was nothing there.
He went in, locked the door, drew the key through and through the dust
and damp in the fire-place to sully it again, and hung it up as of old.
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