He lit a lantern that he took from the cupboard, and then he opened the door that communicated with the staircase terminating in the chapel. He listened as though he fancied that some one might be below listening to the deed of blood above.
"All is still," he muttered, "so very still. It is providential. It is the will of Heaven that this woman should die to night, and after all I am but the instrument of its decrees—nothing more. That is comforting."
He now dragged the body to the door he had opened, but he did not carry it. When he got it there he overbalanced it, and let it fall down. Mrs. Oakley, even from where she was, heard the horrible smash with which it reached the bottom of the stairs.
Lupin followed with the lantern.
And now it would seem as if another opportunity had presented itself to Mrs. Oakley to escape. The staircase down which Lupin had gone communicated with the chapel. It was another flight that led to the ordinary door through which any one passed who might be coming to the private part of the house. That staircase of course she expected to reach without going through the room in which the murder was committed, as her room and the adjoining one both opened upon its landing as well as into each other.
Mrs. Oakley slowly rose from her knees.
"God help us," she said, "and give me strength to make an attempt to leave this frightful place. There will surely be time while Lupin is in the vaults. Oh, yes, there will surely be time."
She tottered along with as little strength as though she had been lying for weeks upon a bed of sickness, so completely had she been unnerved by what she had seen.
She touched the handle of the door. Even that was support. And then, she turned it. The door did not open. It was locked!
Mrs. Oakley felt as if at that moment all her chance of escape was gone. She felt as though she were given over by providence to Lupin to be murdered. Why had he locked the door, but that if by any rare chance she should awaken from the lethargic sleep into which he supposed her to be plunged, she should have no outlet but through the room in which he would be? But he was not there now, and the door of communication between her room and that in which the murder had been done might not be fast.