She placed the laudanum in the cupboard,
locked it, and put the key in her pocket, " Time
enough still," she thought, "before Monday.
I'll wait till the captain comes back."

After some consultation down stairs, it was
agreed that the servant should sit up that night,
in expectation of her master's return. The day
passed quietly, without events of any kind.
Magdalen dreamed away the hours over a book.
A weary patience of expectation was all she
felt now—the poignant torment of thought was
dulled and blunted at last. She passed the day
and the evening in the parlour, vaguely conscious
of a strange feeling of aversion to going back to
her own room. As the night advanced, as the
noises ceased in-doors and out, her restlessness
began to return. She endeavoured to quiet
herself by reading. Books failed to fix her attention.
The newspaper was lying in a corner of the room:
she tried the newspaper next.

She looked mechanically at the headings of
the articles; she listlessly turned over page after
page, until her wandering attention was arrested
by the narrative of an Execution in a distant part
of England. There was nothing to strike her in
the story of the crime; and yet she read it. It
was a common, horribly common, act of blood-
shed- the murder of a woman in farm-service, by
a man in the same employment who was jealous
of her. He had been convicted on no extraordinary
evidence; he had been hanged under no
unusual circumstances. He had made his
confession, when he knew there was no hope for
him, like other criminals of his class; and the
newspaper had printed it at the end of the article,
in these terms:—

I kept company with the deceased for a year or
thereabouts. I said I would marry her when
I had money enough. She said I had money
enough now. We had a quarrel. She refused to
walk out with me any more; she wouldn't draw
me my beer; she took up with my fellow-servant,
David Crouch. I went to her on the Saturday,
and said I would marry her as soon as we
could be asked in church, if she would give up
Crouch. She laughed at me. She turned me out of
the washhouse, and the rest of them saw her turn
me out. I was not easy in my mind. I went and
sat on a gate—the gate in the meadow they call
Pettit's Piece. I thought I would shoot her. I
went and fetched my gun and loaded it. I went
out into Pettit's Piece again. I was hard put to it,
to make up my mind. I thought I would try my
luck—I mean try whether to kill her or not—by
throwing up the Spud of the plough into the air. I
said to myself, if it falls flat, I'll spare her; if it
falls point in the earth, I'll kill her. I took a good
swing with it, and shied it up. It fell point in the
earth. I went and shot her. It was a bad job, but
I did it. I did it, as they said I did it at the trial.
I hope the Lord will have mercy on me. I wish my
mother to have my old clothes. I have no more to
say.

In the happier days of her life, Magdalen
would have passed over the narrative of the
execution, and the printed confession which
accompanied it, unread—the subject would have failed
to attract her. She read the horrible story now—
read it, with an interest unintelligible to herself.
Her attention, which had wandered over higher
and better things, followed every sentence of the
murderer's hideously direct confession, from
beginning to end. If the man, or the woman, had
been known to her—if the place had been familiar
to her memory—she could hardly have followed
the narrative more closely, or have felt a more
distinct impression of it left on her mind. She
laid down the paper, wondering at herself; she
took it up once more, and tried to read some
other portion of the contents. The effort was
useless; her attention wandered again. She
threw the paper away; and went out into the
garden. The night was dark; the stars were
few and faint. She could just see the gravel
walk—she could just pace it backwards and
forwards between the house-door and the gate.

The confession in the newspaper had taken a
fearful hold on her mind. As she paced the walk,
the black night opened over the sea, and showed
her the murderer in the field, hurling the Spud
of the plough into the air. She ran, shuddering,
back to the house. The murderer followed her
into the parlour. She seized the candle, and went
up into her room. The vision of her own
distempered fancy followed her to the place where
the laudanum was hidden—and vanished there.

It was midnight; and there was no sign yet of
the captain's return.

She took from the writing-case the long letter
which she had written to Norah, and slowly read
it through. The letter quieted her. When she
reached the blank space left at the end, she
hurriedly turned back, and began it over again.

One o'clock struck from the church clock; and
still the captain never appeared.

She read the letter for the second time; she
turned back obstinately, despairingly; and began
it for the third time. As she once more reached
the last page, she looked at her watch. It was
a quarter to two. She had just put the watch
back in the belt of her dress, when there came to
her—far off in the stillness of the morning—a
sound of wheels.

She dropped the letter, and clasped her cold
hands in her lap, and listened. The sound came
on, faster and faster, nearer and nearer—the
trivial sound to all other ears; the sound of
Doom to hers. It passed the side of the house;
it travelled a little further on; it stopped. She
heard a loud knocking—then the opening of a
window—then voices—then along silence—then
the wheels again, coming back—then the opening
of the door below, and the sound of the captain's
voice in the passage.

She could endure it no longer. She opened her
door a little way, and called to him.
a He ran up-stairs instantly, astonished that
she was not in bed. She spoke to him through
the narrow opening of the door; keeping herself
hidden behind it, for she was afraid to let him see
her face.

"Has anything gone wrong?" she asked.