“Yes,” he sighed. “Four o’clock!—at this very spot—at this hour on a wet day in mid-winter—”
And his eyes fixed themselves blankly upon the ground a couple of yards distant from where he was standing. “Six years have gone, and it has remained ever a mystery!”
His face was pale, his brow contracted, his teeth firmly set. His eyes still rested upon that spot covered with dead brown leaves. Certainly it was strange that the steep and narrow pathway should possess such fascination for him, for he had wandered there quite involuntarily. It is not too much to say that he would have flown to any other part of England rather than stand upon the spot so closely associated with the chapter in his life’s history that he hoped was closed for ever.
Suddenly he roused himself, and, walking forward a couple of paces, marked with his stick a square in the dead leaves. Apparently he was deep in calculation, for after he had made the mark he carefully measured, by means of his cane, the distance between the square and the top of the short ascent. On either side of the path was a steep moss-grown bank surmounted by thick hazel-bushes, but on the left a little distance up was an old wooden fence, grey with lichen. He appeared to be deeply interested in this fence, for after going close up to it he measured by careful pacing the distance between it and the spot he had marked out.
When this was done, he stood again motionless, his fevered brow bared to the breezes as though to him that spot were hallowed. Then, crossing the stile, he entered the meadow, passing and repassing the narrow lane as though for the purpose of discovering the exact position an observer would be compelled to take up in order to watch a person standing at the point he had marked.
At last he returned, standing again with his back to the stile, his hat raised in reverence, gazing fixedly upon those dead and decaying leaves.
“Yes,” he murmured, “I was mad—mad! The devil tempted me, and I fell. Would to God that I could make amends! But I cannot—I dare not. No, I must suffer!”