.
The suburbs of Cambridge had closed about him.

Those dreary little streets, empty as it seemed of all life, facing him sullenly with their sodden little yellow lamps, shivering, grumbling, he could fancy, in the chill of that November evening, eyed him with suspicion.

He walked through them now, with his shoulders back, his head up.

He could fancy how, to-morrow, their dull placidity would be wrung by the discovery of the crime.

The little wood would fling its secret into the eager lap of these decrepit witches; they would crowd to their doors, chatter it, shout it, pull it to pieces.