In frozen silence he sat and pondered. For would not the news of such a dastardly murder as this now appeared to be, together with the fact that it had been committed in this immediate vicinity, stir up such marked excitement as to cause many--perhaps all--to scan all goers and comers everywhere in the hope of detecting the one who had thus been described? Might it not be better, therefore, since they were so close on his trail already, if he were to go to the authorities at Big Bittern or here and make a clean breast of all that had thus far occurred, the original plot and the reasons therefor, only explaining how at the very last he had not really killed her--had experienced a change of heart and had not been able to do as he had planned? But, no. That would be to give away to Sondra and the Griffiths all that had been going on between him and Roberta--and before it was absolutely certain that all was ended for him here. And besides, would they believe him now, after that flight--those reported wounds? Did it not really look as though he had killed her, regardless of how he might try to explain that he had not? It was not unlikely also that at least some among all those who had seen him would be able to detect him from this printed description, even though he no longer wore the gray suit or the straw hat. God! They were looking for him, or rather for that Clifford Golden or Carl Graham who looked like him, in order to charge him with murder! But if he looked exactly like Clifford Golden and those three men came! He began to shiver. And worst yet. A new and horrible thought, this--and at this instant, and for the first time flashing upon his mind--the similarity of those initials to his own! He had never thought of them in an unfavorable light before, but now he could see that they were detrimental. Why was it that he had never thought of that before? Why was it? Why was it? Oh, God!