CHAPTER 3He heard himself saying it aloud in the quiet of the whispering woods and the lap-lap-lap of the water on the shore, and as he said it he felt a glowing sense of confidence and warmth that made him feel, suddenly, as if he had moved all his life half-asleep to come now to this abrupt and vivid wakening. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadow of the tulip tree into the moonlight. Then he stopped short. The lighted cottage across the clearing on the point was still there in front of him. A man named Gordon was in there on the floor, dead. In a few timeless moments his own inner life had been changed and illumined. The fact of the dead man’s body in there had not changed. It was solid and incontrovertible. Something had to be done. Jonas Smith was the man who had to do i
