He had not, however, been asleep a quarter of an hour when Nisida stole, in the manner described, into his chamber.
A smile of mingled joy and triumph animated her countenance, and a carnation tinge flushed her cheeks when she found he was fast locked in the embrace of slumber.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she examined his doublet, and clutched the key that his father had given to him scarcely six hours before.
Then, light as the fawn, she left the room.
Having retraced her steps half-way up the passage, she paused at the door of the chamber in which the corpse of her father lay.
For an instant—a single instant—she seemed to revolt from the prosecution of her design, then, with a stern contraction of the brows, and an imperious curl of the lip—as if she said within herself, “Fool that I am to hesitate!”—she entered the room.
Without fear—without compunction, she approached the bed. The body was laid out: stretched in its winding sheet, stiff and stark did it seem to repose on the mattress—the countenance rendered more ghastly than even death could make it, by the white band which tied up the under jaw.
The nurse who had thus disposed the corpse, had retired to snatch a few hours of rest; and there was consequently no spy upon Nisida’s actions.
With a fearless step she advanced toward the closet—the mysterious closet relative to which such strange injunctions had been given.