Or perhaps no attempt would be made to hide his death since, after all, it is always permissible to shoot an armed burglar.
The clock on the stairs began to strike the hour, and he wondered if he would still be alive when the last stroke sounded.
He did not much think so for he thought he could read a very deadly purpose in the other's cold grey eyes, nor did he suppose that a man with such a secret as that of the attic upstairs to hide was likely to stand on any scruple.
And he thought that if he still lived when the clock finished striking he would take it for an omen of good hope.
The last stroke sounded and died away into the silence of the night.
The revolver was still levelled at his heart, the grim purpose in the other's eyes had not changed, and yet Dunn drew a breath of deep relief as though the worst of the danger was past.
Through his mind, that had been a little dulled by the sudden consciousness of so extreme a peril, thought began again to race with more than normal rapidity and clearness.
It occurred to him, with a sense of the irony of the position, that when he entered this house it had been with the deliberate intention of getting himself discovered by the inmates, believing that to show himself to them in the character of a burglar might gain him their confidence.
It had seemed to him that so he might come to be accepted as one of them and perhaps learn in time the secret of their plans.
The danger that they might adopt the other course of handing him over to the police had not seemed to him very great, for he had his reasons for believing that there would be no great desire to draw the attention of the authorities to Bittermeads for any reason whatever.