And now a fear came over her that he was watching her through some little hole or crevice of the door, and the very thought was sufficient to make her wonderfully uneasy. If it were so, there was quite sufficient reflected light in the cell to make every one of her actions easily observable, and so her cherished design of taking her own life would be defeated completely.
In lieu of a piece of whalebone in the back of her dress, there was a small tin tube, soldered perfectly tight against the escape of any fluid, and made fast at each end. That tin tube had been in the dress she now selected for many months, and it was filled with a subtle liquid poison, a very few drops of which would prove certainly fatal.
She dreaded that she should be observed to take this ingenious contrivance from her dress and pounced upon before she could break it open and make use of its contents.
She sat down on the miserable kind of bench which served as a bed, and in a very low whisper to herself she said—
"I must wait till night—yes, I must wait till night!"
She knew well that the indulgence of a light would be denied to her, and she smiled to herself, as she thought how that mistaken piece of prison policy would enable her to free herself from what now was the bitter encumbrance of existence.
"The twilight," she muttered, "will soon creep into this gloomy place, and it will be my twilight, too—the twilight of my life before, and only just before, the night of death begins. That night will know no dawn—that long, long sleep which will know no waking! Yea, I will then escape from this strong prison!"
CHAPTER CXXV.
MRS. LOVETT SEES SOME TWILIGHT SPECTRES IN HER CELL.
After she had sat for some time in this state of feeling, and just before the darkness got so apparent that but little could be seen of the few articles that the place contained, she heard the door open.
A flash of light came into the place.