[CHAPTER XXIII.]
The Dark Deed in Thurston Wood.
“Oh, how will crime engender crime! Throw guilt
Upon the soul, and, like a stone cast on
The troubled waters of a lake,
’Twill form in circles, round succeeding round,
Each wider than the first.”
Colman.
A COLD December wind was blowing to and fro the dead brown leaves in Thurston Wood, a large tract of plantation that bounded the northern and higher side of Squire Fuller’s park. Gaunt and grim loomed the naked trees through the foggy air, and the long grass was wet and dank with the perpetual drip of the moisture-laden boughs. The brief dark day was rapidly deepening into night, but a darker deed was about to be perpetrated in that lonely and sombre place.