How
should it be done? There was the rifle with which he had killed deer in
the woods beyond the Saguenay and bear beyond the Chicoutimi. That was
simple--and it was obvious; and it could be done at once. He could soon
overtake the man who had spoiled the world for him.
Yet he was a Norman, and the Norman thinks before he acts. He is the soul
of caution; he wants to get the best he can out of his bargain. He will
throw nothing away that is to his advantage. There should be other ways
than the gun with which to take a man's life--ways which might give a
Norman a chance to sacrifice only one life; to secure punishment where it
was due, but also escape from punishment for doing the obvious thing.
Poison? That was too stupid even to think of once. A pitch-fork and a
dung-heap? That had its merits; but again there was the risk of more than
one life.
All the way to his house, Jean Jacques, with something of the rage of
passion and the glaze of horror gone from his eyes, and his face not now
so ghastly, still brooded over how, after he had had his say, he was to
put George Masson out of the world. But it did not come at once. All
makers of life-stories find their difficulty at times. Tirelessly they
grope along a wall, day in, day out, and then suddenly a great gate
swings open, as though to the touch of a spring, and the whole way is
clear to the goal.
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