On the way back to New York in the train Heberdon reflected with perfect clearness and calmness on what had happened. The pleasant humming in his brain helped him, he decided, to look at matters in the right light.
“Safe under two feet of earth.… The boards neatly nailed down, and fresh dust sifted into the cracks; the rubbish piled on top just as it was.… No danger of anything rising out of that hole to trouble me in the future.… Everything is all right—all right.”
From the number of times he felt called upon to assure himself that everything was all right, it may be guessed that there was a little fear at the bottom of his consciousness that would not be stilled.
“Nobody will disturb the house for a month—more than a month; for the agent will call for his rent a couple of times before
