Mrs. Oakley nearly fainted herself at this juncture, but she felt that her life was in jeopardy, and by a strong mental effort, such as she could hardly have supposed herself capable of making, she sustained herself, and preserved her senses. Lupin lay for some minutes quite insensible upon the floor, but he did not lie long enough for Mrs. Oakley to take advantage of his temporary swoon and leave the place. Had she perhaps been very prompt and resolute, and self-possessed, she might have done so, but under the whole of the circumstances, it was not to be supposed that such could be her state of mind; so the slight opportunity, for, after all, it was only a slight one, if one at all, was let slip by her.
She was just beginning to ask herself if there was a chance of getting away before Lupin should recover, when he uttered a hideous groan, and moved slightly.
After these indications of recovery, Mrs. Oakley was afraid to move; and certainly, the slightest indication of her being otherwise than in the state of insensibility which Lupin believed to be her condition, there is very little doubt it would have been the signal for her death.
The man who commits a murder for the attainment of any object of importance to him, will not scruple to commit another to hide the first deed from the eyes of the world.
And now Lupin slowly rose to a sitting posture, and glared around him for a few moments in silence. Then he spoke.
"What is this?" he said. "What is all this? What is the meaning of all this? Blood!—blood! Is this blood upon my hands? No—no—yes, it is—it is. Ah! I recollect."
He held his blood-stained hands to his eyes for a few moments, and then as he withdrew them, he slowly turned his eyes to where the body lay. With a shudder he dragged himself along the floor further off from it, gasping out as he did so—
"Off—off, horrible object!—off—off!"
His distempered imagination, no doubt, pictured the body as following him. Is there not, indeed, a prompt retribution in this world?
"Off—off, I say! No further!—Not dead?—not dead yet? How much blood have you in you now to shed? Off—off!"
He reached the wall. He could get no further, and thus pursued still by the same wild insane idea, he sprung to his feet, and uttering a loud cry, he caught up a chair and held it out at arm's length before him, shouting—
"Keep away—keep away! Keep off, I say—I—I did not do it. Who shall say I did it? Who saw me do it?"
He slowly dropped the chair, and then in a more composed voice he said—
"Hush! hush! I am mad to raise these cries. They will alarm the court. I am mad—mad!"
Mrs. Oakley had hoped that his ravings would reach some other ears then hers, and that his apprehension, with the bleeding witness of his crime close at hand, would follow as a thing of course, and then how gladly would she have flown from her place of concealment, and cried out—
"He did it! I saw him! That is the man!"
But such was not the case. Either he really did not call out loud enough to make himself heard, or the inhabitants of the court were too much accustomed to all sorts of sounds to pay any attention even to the ravings of a murderer!
No one came. No one even knocked at the chapel-door to know if anything was amiss, and when she saw him calm, and in a measure self-possessed again, her heart died within her.
"Murder! murder!" he said; "I have done murder! Yes, I have steeped my hands in blood—again—again! It is not the first time, but one does not become familiar with murder. I did not feel as I feel now when I took a life before. Oh, horror! horror!"
He shook, but soon again recovered himself.
"The vaults! The vaults!" he said. "They will hide the dead. Who will look for this woman? What friends has she? Is there one in all the world who cares if she be alive or dead? Not one. Is there one who will stir six steps to find out what has become of her? Not one."
Again he solaced himself with a draught of brandy, and then he set about making his preparations for disposing of the dead body of his slaughtered victim.
From a drawer in the room he took a large sheet, and spread it upon the floor. Then he kicked and pushed the dead body with his feet on to it, and then he deliberately rolled it up round and round in the sheet, and at each fold feeling that it was further removed from his sight, he seemed to breathe more and more freely.
He spoke in something like his old tones.
"That will do—that will do. The vaults will be the place. Was there ever such a cunning place for murder to be done in as a chapel, with its ready receptacles of the dead beneath it? There let her rot. She will never come up in judgment against me from there. It is done now. The deed that I often thought of doing, and yet never had the courage, nor the opportunity at the same time, to accomplish until to-night. The vaults—the vaults. Ay, the vaults!"
He lit a lantern that he took from the cupboard, and then he opened the door that communicated with the staircase terminating in the chapel. He listened as though he fancied that some one might be below listening to the deed of blood above.
"All is still," he muttered, "so very still. It is providential. It is the will of Heaven that this woman should die to night, and after all I am but the instrument of its decrees—nothing more. That is comforting."
He now dragged the body to the door he had opened, but he did not carry it. When he got it there he overbalanced it, and let it fall down. Mrs. Oakley, even from where she was, heard the horrible smash with which it reached the bottom of the stairs.
Lupin followed with the lantern.
And now it would seem as if another opportunity had presented itself to Mrs. Oakley to escape. The staircase down which Lupin had gone communicated with the chapel. It was another flight that led to the ordinary door through which any one passed who might be coming to the private part of the house. That staircase of course she expected to reach without going through the room in which the murder was committed, as her room and the adjoining one both opened upon its landing as well as into each other.
Mrs. Oakley slowly rose from her knees.
"God help us," she said, "and give me strength to make ............