Down he went upon his face, uttering cries of deadly terror.
"Keep him off, keep him off.

He will kill me, he will kill me." But Larry having shot his bolt ignored his fallen enemy, and without a glance at him, or at either of the other boys, or without a word to any of them, he walked away through the wood, and deaf to their calling disappeared through the cedar swamp and made straight for home and to his mother.

With even, passionless voice, with almost no sign of penitence, he told her the story of the day's truancy.
As her discriminating eye was quick in discerning his penitence, so her forgiveness was quick in meeting his sin.

But though her forgiveness brought the boy a certain measure of relief he seemed almost to take it for granted, and there still remained on his face a look of pain and of more than pain that puzzled his mother.

He seemed to be in a maze of uncertainty and doubt and fear.