The Jew had made a confession. From Völgyeshy and Vandory she could not expect forbearance. She could not hope that Tengelyi's friends would make a secret of what Jantshi had told them; since his disclosures were evidently in Tengelyi's favour. She knew that she was hated by all, and that against such accusations she could not rely on the assistance of her husband.
"What shall I do?" cried she, with a shudder. "Is there no means of salvation?—There is none! Tengelyi's case is too far advanced to be suppressed; and even if it were not, to whom could I confide my dreadful position? Whose advice can I ask? On whose assistance can I rely? My husband?—am I to truckle to him? Am I to implore his assistance? He never loved me! He hates me now! He will leave me in my danger! He will turn against me to prove his own innocence! No! I will do any thing but bend to him!"
A sudden thought seemed to strike her. She fixed her eyes on the desk which stood on the dressing-table. She shuddered.
"No! No!" cried she; "it has not come to this pass yet. I cannot do it!"
She went to the window; but before she had opened it, her eyes were, as if by magic force, again attracted by the desk.
"It makes me mad!" said she. "God help me! That thought haunts me! I cannot shake it off!"
"But why?" continued she; after a pause—"why should I shudder at the thought. To die——? After all, death robs us of that only which we have. And is there anything I have to lose? I have no children. I detest my husband. My plans are frustrated. Infamy and punishment await me—I have no choice!"
She opened a secret drawer in the desk, and produced a small bottle containing a whitish substance. Her hand trembled as she put it on the table.
"Here's arsenic enough to poison half the county. This is my last, my only alternative.—But they say it is a painful death. They have told me of people who died after excruciating torments of many hours, foaming and cursing with the intensity of the pain. What if this were to be my case? Horrid! to suffer the agony of hours! to feel the poison eating into me; to feel my every nerve struggling against destruction! to howl and to suffer, and to have no one to tend me! to have no one by to wipe the sweat of agony from my face! Or worse, to be surrounded by those whose every look tells me that they are waiting for the end, not of my sufferings, but of my life!"
With a convulsive motion she pushed the poison away.