He, nevertheless, trembled, as he strove to reason himself out of his nervous fears, and he was some time before he could decide upon where to put his confession, so that it must eventually be found, but still where a search would be required to bring it to light. He finally ripped some of the lining from his cloak, and inserted the confession between that and the cloth.
“There it will be quite safe from any casual observation,” he said, “while sooner or later it must come to light, and my vengeance would be greater by a little delay, because Learmont would be lulled into fancied security if no immediate danger assailed after my death.”
He sunk upon his chair muttering.
“Death again—death again—death again—how that notion haunts me! An absurd fancy; in my case a most absurd fancy, for never was I so safe—so free—so likely to obtain all that I wish as I am now—my star is in the ascendant.”
He hung the cloak on a large hook behind the door of his room, and then said,—
“How many persons would search this room, and toss this cloak about, without discovering that it contained anything so important as that now hidden in it.”
He then proceeded to a cupboard, and taking from it a case bottle, he drank a quantity of raw spirits, to which he had latterly habituated himself whenever he felt any disagreeable mental qualms which he could not reason himself out of.
“Drink—drink,” he muttered, as he returned the case bottle to its place. “That is the wretch’s last solace. It will for a time banish care, but it is a deceitful fiend that comes at first with semblance of great friendship, but sooner or later it will turn upon him who has been lured by it, and become a deadly foe. I—think I will sleep now—all is safe, and I am very weary; my confession will be found after my death—ah, that word again—death—death—nothing else can I think of—come, welcome sleep.”
He threw himself upon his bed, and exhausted as he was by the few preceding day’s actions, he soon dropped into slumber—not an unbroken or easy one, though, for the imagination, now freed from the control of reason, conjured up fearful images into the brain of the man of crime.