“I don't know—on his way to Purdy's. Go on in; I'll attend to your horse and come back and find you a place to bunk.”
Carson sank back on his bed. A sense of vast, almost soothing relief was on him. His mother was saved. The verdict that had been rendered would forever bury the facts. Now, he told himself, he could sleep with his mind at rest. And yet—
He heard the new-corner ascend the stairs with heavy, shambling tread and enter the room adjoining his own. Through a crack between the floor and the thin partition he saw a pencil of candle-light and heard the grinding of boot-soles on the floor as the man undressed. Then the light went out, the bed-slats creaked, and all was still.
CHAPTER XL
WIGHT reached Darley the following evening shortly after dusk, and rode straight through the central portion of the town and past his office. All day long he had debated with himself whether it would be wise to take Garner into his confidence, and at last had decided that it would do no good, and only cause his sympathetic partner to worry needlessly, since Garner nor no one else could point out any better course than the one to which, perforce, he had committed himself. Carson now comprehended his insistent morbidness. It was not fear; it was not a guilty conscience; it was only the galling shackles of unwonted and hateful secrecy, the vague and far-reaching sense of uncertainty, the knowledge of being, before the law (which was no respecter of persons, circumstances, or sentiment), as guilty of murder as any other untried violator of peace and order.