When at last he got up from the table he glanced apprehensively around the room; and after he had put out the light and climbed the stairs to his rooms above the bank, he was trembling.
Maison had often dealt crookedly with his fellow-men, but never, until the incident of Devil's Hole, had he deliberately planned murder.

Thus tonight Maison's conscience had more ghastly evidence to confront him with, and conscience is a pitiless retributive agent.
Maison poured himself a generous drink of whisky from a bottle on a sideboard before he got into bed, but the story told him by Dale and the others of the terrible scene at Devil's Hole--remained so staringly vivid in his thoughts that whisky could not dim it.
He groaned and pulled the covers over his head, squirming and twisting, for the night was warm and there was little air stirring.
After a while Maison sat up.

It seemed to him that he had been in bed for an age, though actually the time was not longer than an hour.
It had been late when he had left the room downstairs.

And now he listened for sounds that would tell him that Okar's citizens were still busy with their pleasures.
But no sound came from the street.

Maison yearned for company, for he felt unaccountably depressed and morbid.