Very rapidly he told his story, how, arrayed in Paul’s coat, trousers and hat, he had started for a stroll in the woods as he often did on a Sunday afternoon, taking Paul’s revolver with him in hopes he might find some animal to fire at. He had no idea of Jack’s proximity to him, and when a rabbit ran in that direction he fired at it, as Elithe saw him do. The shot was followed by a groan, telling him he had wounded some one. In his fright he threw the pistol away, but did not know why he did it. His first impulse was to go to the clump of bushes and see who was there. Then he heard Elithe call out that some one was shot, and, like a coward, he skulked behind the trees, hearing the confusion of voices and some one saying, “He is dying.” Thoroughly frightened, he hurried through the woods and across the fields in the direction of Still Haven, seeing no one until he was near New York wharf. Here he met and spoke to two or three, but heard nothing of the disaster. On Highland Avenue he was joined by Paul, coming from the direction of the brick kiln. They walked together until nearly home, when they were told that some one had been shot and carried into Miss Hansford’s cottage. Paul had at once started for the cottage, and he, Tom, had gone on, hearing later that Jack had committed suicide. He had no thought that Paul would be suspected, and when he knew he was he was too much frightened to speak out and say that he did it. “I tried a hundred times. I swan I did,” he said, as he saw the contempt in Elithe’s face, “but something always gripped my tongue and kept me still. And then I didn’t b’lieve they’d go so far with him,—he was so popular and rich, and when they put him in jail I swore on the Bible that if he was convicted I’d own up, and I meant it, too, though life and liberty is as sweet to me as to him, and because they are so sweet and I hated so to give up everything and be hung or sent to State’s Prison, I contrived a plan to liberate him and get him out of the country, where he’d be safe, and then I needn’t tell.” “But leave him all his life with that cloud upon him. Oh, Tom, I am disappointed in you, and I thought you so good, standing by Mr. Ralston as you have,” Elithe exclaimed, feeling sorry the next moment for the man who looked so abject and crushed and on whose face drops of sweat were standing, although the day was cold and gusty. “Infernal mean, I know,” he said, “but I’ve suffered more than he, I do believe. Look how poor I’ve grown, and how baggy my clothes set on me. It’s remorse that did it, and the knowing I must take his place if he didn’t get off. I was as tired of his hidin’ with me and Sherry keepin’ watch as he was. I knew it couldn’t last forever, and I was that glad I could have shouted when he settled it that he would go back. I am happier than I have been since the shootin’.”