In the moments before he is hanged, Peyton Farquhar attempts to "fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children." While he awaits the fatal drop into the noose, he feels time seem to slow down and the "intervals of silence" between the tickings of his watch grow longer and longer. This is what allows for the entirety of Part III to take place: in this section, Farquhar's imagination takes over (in the brief space of time between when he begins to fall and the moment the rope snaps his neck) and he envisions his escape from the Union army and his return home through the forest. The narrator tells us that "he thought with the rapidity of lightning." During these last partial seconds of his life, Farquhar sees himself walking for miles and miles through the dense and "interminable" forest in order to reach his home and family. Finally, just as he's about to "clasp" his wife in his arms, the rope breaks his neck and he hangs, dead, from the bridge.
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