"He did it! I saw him! That is the man!"
But such was not the case. Either he really did not call out loud enough to make himself heard, or the inhabitants of the court were too much accustomed to all sorts of sounds to pay any attention even to the ravings of a murderer!
No one came. No one even knocked at the chapel-door to know if anything was amiss, and when she saw him calm, and in a measure self-possessed again, her heart died within her.
"Murder! murder!" he said; "I have done murder! Yes, I have steeped my hands in blood—again—again! It is not the first time, but one does not become familiar with murder. I did not feel as I feel now when I took a life before. Oh, horror! horror!"
He shook, but soon again recovered himself.
"The vaults! The vaults!" he said. "They will hide the dead. Who will look for this woman? What friends has she? Is there one in all the world who cares if she be alive or dead? Not one. Is there one who will stir six steps to find out what has become of her? Not one."
Again he solaced himself with a draught of brandy, and then he set about making his preparations for disposing of the dead body of his slaughtered victim.
From a drawer in the room he took a large sheet, and spread it upon the floor. Then he kicked and pushed the dead body with his feet on to it, and then he deliberately rolled it up round and round in the sheet, and at each fold feeling that it was further removed from his sight, he seemed to breathe more and more freely.
He spoke in something like his old tones.
"That will do—that will do. The vaults will be the place. Was there ever such a cunning place for murder to be done in as a chapel, with its ready receptacles of the dead beneath it? There let her rot. She will never come up in judgment against me from there. It is done now. The deed that I often thought of doing, and yet never had the courage, nor the opportunity at the same time, to accomplish until to-night. The vaults—the vaults. Ay, the vaults!"