Dutch opened the desk on the instant, but the scene was gone, and hastily closing the lid again he began to pace the room.
For a moment his intention was to rush off home, but he restrained himself for the time, and tried to recall the past; but his brain was in a whirl. At last he grew more calm, and took out his watch.
“Only five o’clock,” and he had said that he should get some dinner where he was, stop late at work, and not be home till after nine.
He was to stay there and work for another three or four hours—to make calculations that required all his thought, when he had seen or conjured up that dreadful sight. No: he could not bear it. His nerves tingled, his brain was throbbing, and incipient madness seemed to threaten his reason as he prepared to obey the influence that urged him to go home.
“The villain!” he groaned. “It must be a warning. Heaven help me, I will know the worst.”
Story 1--Chapter VI.
A Pleasant Evening.
Dutch Pugh seized his hat and coat, and was about to dash into the street, when the remembrance of that evening before the coming of the Cuban came upon him, and he replaced them.