Again Duggin was sober as he stumbled out into the evening.
Ichabod moved slowly up the street, months aged in those last few minutes. Reaction was inevitable, and with it the future instead of the present, stared him in the face. He had crowded the lie down the man’s throat, but well he knew it had been useless. The story was true, and it would spread; no power of his could prevent. He could not deceive himself, even. That name! Again the white anger born of memory, flooded him. Curses on the name and on the man who had spoken it! Why must the fellow have turned coward at the last moment? Had they but touched feet over the line––
Suddenly Ichabod stopped, his hands pressed to his head. Camilla, home––alone! And he had forgotten! He hurried back to the waiting Swede, an anathema that was not directed at another, hot on his lips. 198
“All ready, Ole,” he announced, clambering to the seat.
The boy handed up the lines lingeringly.
“Here, sir.” Then uncontrollable, long-repressed curiosity broke the bounds of deference. “You––heard him, sir?”
“Yes.”
Ole edged toward his own wagon.
“It wasn’t so?”