Ryder did not speak nor move. All was hushed and still in the room. Suddenly a nervous chill seized the old convict. He shook from head to heel.
“I didn't mean to hit you,” he said, speaking to the prostrate figure at his feet. “Here, let me help you.”
He stooped and felt around on the floor until he found Ryder's hand. He released it instantly to take the lamp from the table. Then he knelt beside the editor. In the corner where the latter lay stood a rusty wood-stove. In his fall Griff's head had struck against it.
The lamp shook in Roger Oakley's hand like a leaf in a gale. Ryder's eyes were open and seemed to look into his own with a mute reproach. For the rest he lay quite limp, his head twisted to one side. The old man felt of his heart. One or two minutes elapsed. His bearing was one of feverish intensity. He heard three men loiter by on the street, and the sound of their footfalls die off in the distance, but Ryder's heart had ceased to beat. Fully convinced of this, he returned the lamp to the table and, sitting down in the chair by the door, covered his face with his hands and sobbed aloud.
Over and over he murmured: “I've killed him, I've killed him! Poor boy! poor boy! I didn't goto do it!”
Presently he got up and made a second examination. The man was dead past every doubt. His first impulse was to surrender himself to the town marshal, as he had done once before under similar circumstances.
Then he thought of Dan.
No, he must escape, and perhaps it would never be known who had killed Ryder. His death might even be attributed to an accident. In his excitement he forgot the boy he had met at the door. That incident had passed entirely from his mind, and he did not remember the meeting until days afterwards.
He had been utterly indifferent to his own danger, but now he extinguished the lamp and made his way cautiously into the outer room and peered into the street. As he crouched in the darkness by the door he heard the town bell strike the hour. He counted the strokes. It was eight o'clock. An instant later and he was hurrying down the street, fleeing from the ghastly horror of the white, upturned face, and the eyes, with their look of mute reproach.
When he reached the railroad track at the foot of Main Street, he paused irresolutely.