What would they do to him?
His part in the affair was sure to be found out.

He tried to think what the punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a murderer as well?
Could he not hang for this?
His imagination was never more active; his fear never more keen.

At once a thousand plans of concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.
But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no matter how it was palliated or evaded here.

Then for an instant it was as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation.

To look too long in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.
And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all straight and trickling with moisture.