She had a presentiment that Lupin would come to look at her to see that she still slumbered. She was right.
He had not been in the room where the deed of blood had been committed many minutes, when he opened the door of communication between the two apartments, and came in not with the lantern, but with the candle he had left burning upon the table. He did not come above three steps into the room, and then he spoke—
"Sister Oakley it is time to pray."
Mrs. Oakley moved not—spoke not.
"Sister Oakley, will you be so good as to rise, and go to the corner of the next street on a little errand for me?"
How tempting this was! but Mrs. Oakley had the discretion to imagine the wolf in the sheep's clothing now; she saw in all this only a clear mode of ascertaining if she were awake or not, and she would not speak nor move.
This was, in truth, a wise policy upon the part of Mrs. Oakley. That it was so, became abundantly apparent when Lupin spoke again.
"All is right," he said. "The opiate has done its work bravely, I feel easy now, and yet I don't know how I came for a moment to feel otherwise, or to imagine for a moment there was danger from this woman. If I only had any proof that there was, I would soon put it beyond her power to be mischievous. But, no—no, she has slept soundly and knows nothing."
It required, indeed, no ordinary nerve during this speech of Lupin's, for Mrs. Oakley to preserve the stillness of apparent deep sleep; but we none of us know what we can do until we are put to it; after all, what a just punishment to Mrs. Oakley was all that she was now going through. She had had more faith in that bold, bad, mountebank of a parson than in Heaven itself, and she was justly punished.
Having then made this trial of her sleeping state, Mr. Lupin retired with the candle again, quite satisfied—at least one would have thought so; and as he had talked of the amazing ease of mind he felt now that he had, murdered his wife, it was rather surprising that he did not go to bed and sleep serenely instead of pacing his room to and fro for more than four hours mumbling disjointed words and sentences to himself as he did so, for Mrs. Oakley heard him, but she did not dare to move.