That hurt Lite, and made it seem more than ever his task to clear up the matter, if he could.

If he could not, then he would make amends in whatever way he might.
Almost as if he were guarding that gruesome room which was empty now and silent,--since the clock had not been wound and had run down,--he sat long upon the narrow platform before the kitchen door and smoked and stared straight before him.

Once he thought he saw a man move cautiously from the corner of the shed where the youngest calf slept beside its mother, He had been thinking so deeply of other things that he was not sure, but he went down there, his cigarette glowing in the gloom, and stood looking and listening.
He neither saw nor heard anything, and presently he went back to the house; but his abstraction was broken by the fancy, so that he did not sit down again to smoke and think.

He had thought until his brain felt heavy and stupid; and the last cigarette he lighted; he threw away, for he had smoked until his tongue was sore.

He went in and went to bed.
For a long time he lay awake.