‘Yes,’ he soliloquized, when he was alone in his chamber, after parting with Gordon and Joe for the night; ‘I feel confident that Gordon will not fail, and, that ere many weeks have elapsed, my hated foe will be no more. Oh, this will be goodly revenge. Inez, too, will then be securely mine, and nothing will release her from my power!’
The wretch paced his chamber, as he thus spoke, and his eyes sparkled with exultation. He pictured to himself in imagination, the unbounded bliss that was in store for him in the gratification of his sensual and disgusting passions, and he determined that but a short time should elapse, ere he would have the full accomplishment of all his wishes. He slept but little that night, for thinking upon his villainous stratagems, and when he reflected that he was beneath the same roof with the unfortunate Inez, and had it in his power to force her to an immediate compliance with his wishes, he could with difficulty keep his ecstasy within the bounds of reason.
In the morning Gordon, after having so disguised himself that no person could by any possibility recognize him, and having received some fresh instructions and injunctions from Blodget, took his departure on his inhuman errand, and Blodget and Joe, with an old woman, were left alone in the house.
We need not inform the reader of the distracting hours of misery Inez had undergone since her incarceration in the house. Her sufferings were almost too powerful for human endurance, and it was wonderful how she could retain her senses. Her agonizing thoughts were divided between her own situation and that of her father, and her disordered imagination pictured them, if possible, more dreadful than they actually were.
‘I shall never behold him again,’ she sighed, and scalding tears chased each other down her pale cheeks; ‘alas! I am torn from them forever. Or, if we should be again destined to meet, under what circumstances may it not be? Myself, perhaps, dishonored—heart-broken; my poor father a raving maniac. Oh, Heavens! the picture that arises upon my imagination is too horrible for contemplation.’
She wrung her hands, and traversed her gloomy chamber with a trembling step.
‘To be beneath the same roof with a murderer, too,’ she added, ‘and that, too, a murderer of the blackest dye! Oh, God! have I not good reason to be distracted? That terrible night when I overheard the wretches conversing upon the monstrous crime of which they had been guilty—when I saw them inter the mangled body of the poor white-haired old man, their unfortunate victim, comes fresh upon my memory as if it had only been just enacted. My heart seems chilled to ice; oh, surely the misfortunes that have since attended me have been a curse upon me for not having given such information of the circumstance as might have led to the apprehension of the assassins. The unfortunate old man’s bones moulder in unhallowed ground, and his blood calls to Heaven for retribution.’
She trembled violently, and almost imagined that she heard a melancholy sigh breathed close to her ear. She staggered to a chair and leant upon it for support, fearing to look around her, lest she should encounter the ghastly and blood-stained face of the murdered man.
All was profoundly still in the house, and the miscreants who inhabited it seemed to be locked in the arms of sleep. Sleep! how could wretches whose consciences were burthened with such a heavy weight of crime, sleep?
The light in the lamp burnt dim, and imparted a still more gloomy appearance to the chamber; and the wind howled dismally without, increasing the horrors of that solemn hour. Inez seated herself by the side of her bed, and, after a pause, did once more venture to look around the room, but nothing but of an ordinary description met her observation.