All the day she wandered about the house, such thoughts as these in her heart, and in her pocket a bottle of that concentrated which Mr. Redmain was taking much diluted for medicine. But she hoped not to have to use it . If only Mr. Redmain would yield the conflict, and depart without another interview with the lawyer!
But if he would not, and two drops from the said bottle, not taken by herself, but by another, would save her, all her life to come, from endless anxiety and grinding care, from weariness and disgust, and indeed from want; nor that alone, but save likewise that other from an hour, or two hours, or perhaps a week, or possibly two weeks, or—who could tell?—it might be a month of pain and moaning and weariness, would it not be well?—must it not be more than well?
She had not learned to fear temptation; she feared poverty, dependence, humiliation, labor, ennui , misery. The thought of the life that must follow and wrap her round in the case of the dreaded disclosure was unendurable; the thought of the suggested frustration was not so unendurable—was not absolutely unendurable—was to be borne—might be permitted to come—to return—was cogitated—now with imagined resistance, now with reluctant and partial acceptance, now with faint resolve, and now with determined resolution—now with the beaded drops pouring from the forehead, and now with a cold, scornful smile of triumphant foil and success.
Was she so very exceptionally bad, however? You who hate your brother or your sister—you do not think yourself at all bad! But you are a murderer, and she was only a murderer. You do not feel wicked? How do you know she did? Besides, you hate, and she did not hate; she only wanted to take care of herself. Lady Macbeth did not hate Duncan; she only wanted to give her husband his crown. You only hate your brother; you would not, you say, do him any harm; and I believe you would not do him mere bodily harm; but, were things changed, so that hate-action became absolutely safe, I should have no confidence what you might not come to do. No one can tell what wreck a gust of passion upon a sea of hate may work. There are men a man might well kill, if he were anything less than ready to die for them. The difference between the man that hates and the man that kills may be nowhere but in the courage. These are grewsome thinkings: let us leave them—but hating with them.
All the afternoon Sepia hovered about Mr. Rcdmain's door, down upon Mewks every moment he appeared. Her head ached; she could hardly breathe. Rest she could not. Once when Mewks, coming from the room, told her his master was asleep, she crept in, and, softly approaching the head of the bed, looked at him from behind, then stole out again.
"He seems dying, Mewks," she said.
"Oh, no, miss! I've often seen him as bad. He's better."
"Who's that whispering?" murmured the patient, angrily, though half asleep.
Mewks went in, and answered:
"Only me and Jemima, sir."