which I mean the other) had not stirred hand or foot, since he had
stood still to look at the boy. He faced round, now, to follow him
with his eyes. As the back of the bare light-brown head was turned
to him, he saw a red curve stretch from his hand to it. He knew,
before he threw the bill-hook, where it had alighted--I say, had
alighted, and not, would alight; for, to his clear perception the
thing was done before he did it. It cleft the head, and it
remained there, and the boy lay on his face.

'He buried the body in the night, at the foot of the tree. As soon
as it was light in the morning, he worked at turning up all the
ground near the tree, and hacking and hewing at the neighbouring
bushes and undergrowth. When the labourers came, there was nothing
suspicious, and nothing suspected.

'But, he had, in a moment, defeated all his precautions, and
destroyed the triumph of the scheme he had so long concerted, and
so successfully worked out. He had got rid of the Bride, and had
acquired her fortune without endangering his life; but now, for a
death by which he had gained nothing, he had evermore to live with
a rope around his neck.

'Beyond this, he was chained to the house of gloom and horror,
which he could not endure. Being afraid to sell it or to quit it,
lest discovery should be made, he was forced to live in it. He
hired two old people, man and wife, for his servants; and dwelt in
it, and dreaded it. His great difficulty, for a long time, was the
garden. Whether he should keep it trim, whether he should suffer
it to fall into its former state of neglect, what would be the
least likely way of attracting attention to it?