Besides, I won't trust it a moment out of my hands. You would put
something in it before I could wink." "Really, really! What a strange woman. But won't you have a glass, Jane,
to drink it out of? Let me get you a glass now?" "No, you would put something in that too. Oh, I am up to your tricks, I
am, old boy. You won't get the better of me. Very good brandy it is,
too. Ah! strong rather." Jane took a hearty pull at the bottle, so hearty a one that two thirds
of the mixture vanished, and then with her hand on the neck of it, she
sat glaring at Lupin, who was on the opposite side of the table, with an
awfully satanic grin upon his ugly features. "It has an odd taste." "An odd taste?" cried Lupin. "It's a capital thing that you bought it
yourself, and kept your hand over the bottle. I'm very glad of that, old
woman." "But I feel odd--I--I--ain't the thing. I don't feel very well, Lupin." "Ha, ha, ha!" "I--I feel as if I were dying. I--I don't see things very clearly. I am
ill--ill. Oh, what is this? Something is amiss. Mercy, mercy!" "Ha, ha, ha!" "I--I--shall fall. Help! The room swims round with me. I am poisoned. I
know I am. Mercy! help! murder! Oh, spare me." "Ha, ha, ha!" Lupin rose and went round the table. He caught hold of the wretched
woman by the head, and applying his mouth close to her ear, he said--

"Jane! There was something in the bottle, and I intend to cut your
throat. I hope the knife you have got with you has a good edge to it?" She tried to scream, but an indistinct, strange, stifled cry only came
from her lips. She tried to get up, but her limbs refused their office. The powerful narcotic had taken effect, and she fell forward, her head
striking the table heavily, and upsetting the bottle with the remainder
of the drugged brandy in it as she did so. "Done!" said Lupin. "Done at last. Oh, how I have watched for such an
opportunity as this. How often I have pleased myself with the idea of
meeting her in some lonely place when she was off her guard, and killing
her, but I never thought that anything could happen half so lucky as
this. Let me think. I am quite alone in this building, or as good as
alone, for Mrs. Oakley sleeps soundly. I can easily drag the dead body
down stairs, and place it in one of the vaults underneath the chapel, to
which I have the key. I will wrench open some coffin if that be all, and
cram her in on the top of the dead there previously. Ah, that will do,
and then I defy any circumstances to find me out. How safe a--mur--I
mean a death this will be to be sure. How very--very safe." Mrs. Oakley shook in every limb, but she kept her eyes steadfastly fixed
at the small hole in the canvas, through which she could see into the
room, and by a horrible species of fascination, she felt that if she had
ever so much wished to do so, she could not then have withdrawn it. No! she was as it were condemned as a fiat of destiny, as a punishment for
her weak and criminal credulity regarding that man, to be a witness to
the dreadful deed he proposed committing, within the sphere of her
observation. It was dreadful. It was truly horrible. But it was not now by any means
to be avoided. Lupin disappeared for a few seconds into a room where he usually himself
slept. From thence he returned with a wash-hand basin in his hand, which
he placed upon the floor. He then fumbled about the clothing of his wife
until he found the knife that she had twice so threateningly exhibited
to him. He held it up to the light and narrowly scrutinised it. "It will do I think," he said. He tried its keenness upon the edge of the sole of his shoe, and he was
satisfied that it had been well prepared for mischief. "It will do well," he said. "Well, nothing can be better. From this
night I shall be free from the fears that have haunted me night and day
for so long. This woman is the only person in all London who really
knows me, and who has it in her power to destroy all my prospects. When
she is gone, I shall be perfectly easy and safe, and surely never was
such a deed as this done with so much positive safety." Mrs. Oakley felt sickened at what she saw, but still she looked upon it
with that same species of horrible fascination which it is said--and
said truly, too--prevents the victim of a serpent's glittering eye from
escaping the jaws of the destroyer. She saw it all. She did not
move--she did not scream--she did not weep--but as if frozen to the
spot, she, with a statuesque calmness, looked upon that most horrible
scene of blood. She was the witness appointed by Heaven to see it done,
and she could not escape her mission. Lupin twined his left hand in the hair at the back of the head of the
wretched woman, and then he held her head over the wash-hand basin. There was a bright flash of the knife, and then a gushing, gurgling
sound, and blood poured into the basin, hot, hissing and frothing. The
light fell upon the face of Lupin, and at that time so changed was it,
that Mrs. Oakley could not have recognised it, and, but that she knew
from the antecedents that it was no other than he, she might have
doubted if some devil had not risen up through the floor to do the deed
of blood. He dropped the knife to the floor. [Illustration: Lupin Drugs His Wife, And Then Cuts Her Throat.] The murdered woman made a faint movement with her arms, and then all was
over. The blood still rolled forth and filled the wash-hand basin. Lupin
caught the cover from the table, throwing everything that was upon it to
the floor, and wrapped it many times round the head, face, and neck of
his victim. "It is done!" he said. "It is done!" He still held the body by the hair of the head, and dragging it along
the floor, he dropped it near the door opening on to the staircase. He
then went to a cupboard in the room, and finding a bottle, he plunged
the neck of it into his mouth, and drank deeply. The draught was ardent
spirit, but it had no more effect upon him at that moment than as though
it had been so much water from a spring. That is to say, it had no
intoxicating effect. It may have stilled some of the emotions of dread
and horror which his own crime must have called up from the bottom even
of such a heart as his. He was human, and he could not be utterly
callous. Leaning against the cupboard-door for a few seconds he gasped out--

"Yes, it is done. It is quite done, and now for the worst. Now for the
body, and the vaults, and the dead. Can I do it? can I do it? I must. Yes, I must. There is no safety for me if I do not. I shall come else to
the scaffold. I think already that I see the hooting crowd--the rope and
the cross-beam. Now they hold my arms. Now they tell me to call upon God
for mercy to my wretched blood-stained soul. Now the mob shouts. The
hangman touches me--I feel the rope about my neck. They draw the cap
over my face, and so shut out the world from me for ever. I die--I
struggle--I writhe--I faint--God--God--God help me!" He fell heavily to the floor of the room. CHAPTER CV.