she murmured, almost weeping, in grief-stricken cadences, and her agony rose, the plaint rose, and she shrieked higher and higher—
“Non son degna di pieta!”
She started violently, terrified at the penetrating, shrill notes of her broken voice, and she flung her sheet from her shoulders and sat down shivering. Would they have heard her? she wondered. She just glanced through the open French window on to the street. No, there were only a few people walking about in the growing darkness. But in the house? Well, any way, she could not help it now. She would be sensible once more. She sobbed, and yet she laughed. She laughed at herself. If she excited herself like that she would never sleep. Suddenly she threw herself on her disarranged bed, and closed her eyes, but sleep would not come.
“Oh, heavens! Oh, great heavens!” she groaned. “Oh, great heavens, I pray you let me sleep.”
And she wept bitterly, continuously. Then a thought shot through her brain. If she should drink a few drops more than the Brussels doctor had prescribed? Would it hurt her? She thought not, because the dose she was in the habit of taking now gave her no relief whatever. How many drops, she wondered, could she add to it without risk? As many as she had taken already? No, that would be too many, of course. Who knows what might happen? But, for instance, half as many again! Therefore, three drops more? No, no, she dared not. The doctor had so urgently warned her to be careful. Still it was very tempting, the few drops, and she rose. She took her little phial to count the three drops. One—two—three—four—five—the last two fell into the glass before she had time to take away the bottle. Five—that would be too [[311]]many? She hesitated for a moment. With these five drops she would be certain to sleep. Still she hesitated, but all at once she came to a resolution, lured as she was to it by the prospect of rest. And she drank.
She laid herself down on the floor, close to the open French window. The cold perspiration broke out all over her, and she felt a dullness stealing over her, but such a strange dullness it was, quite different from what she usually felt.
“Oh, great God!” thought she. “Have—have I taken too many?”
No, no, that would be too terrible. Death was so black, so empty, so mysterious, but still, if it were so? And suddenly her fears melted away into a restfulness immeasurable. Well, if it were so she would not care. And she began to laugh with inaudible, nervous little laughs, while the dullness descended upon her with a crushing weight as of the heavy fist of a giant. With her hand she wanted to defend herself from those giant fists, and her fingers became entangled in a cord about her neck. Oh, that was—that was his portrait, Otto’s portrait. Could she indeed have taken too much? When to-morrow came should she——? She shuddered. To-morrow morning would they knock at her door in vain, and in the end would they find her lying there? A terrible thought indeed. She was wet through with perspiration, and her fingers again wandered to the locket. No, that portrait they should not find on her bosom. She raised herself up, and wrenched the portrait out of the locket. She could no longer distinguish it, for it had grown dark in her room, and in her eyes the light was already failing; only the yellow glare of the street-lamp fell with a dull reflection into the room. But she saw the likeness with her mind’s eye, with her fingers she touched the little piece of pasteboard, and she kissed it, kissed it repeatedly.
“Oh, Otto,” she faltered, in a heavy labouring voice; “you it was, you alone, my Otto, not Vincent, not St. Clare, no one but you. You—oh, my Otto—oh, Otto—oh, great God!”
And she struggled despairingly between the agony of death and a calm resignation. Then, after covering the portrait with passionate kisses, she placed it in her mouth despairingly without the strength left her to tear it up, or to destroy it in any other way than by swallowing it. Thus, whilst a trembling gasp of breath shook [[312]]through her whole frame, she chewed, chewed the discarded proof of the portrait—of the portrait of Otto.