With these thoughts rushing confusedly through his brain, Feodor took the lamp in his hand and entered the next room. The woman lay before him with closed eyes. He threw the lamp-light on her face. Her hands were clasped across her breast, which gently rose and fell.
Something whispered to him that the woman must die. She might have heard everything and might only be feigning sleep.
He set down the lamp. Placing one hand over her heart, he held in the other a keen dagger, so that its point just touched her breast. Had but a single quickened beat betrayed that she was aware of the danger so near her, the weapon would have pierced her heart. But Mashinka lay perfectly still.
Presently a smile flitted across her face, and her lips began to mutter words as sleepers often do in dreams.
"Do not tickle me so with the blade of grass, Shasha," she murmured coyly.
The Apostle of Dago had not the heart to drive the blade of steel into her bosom.
But something within him admonished him.
"Thou art not wholly mine," said the voice; "a single good feeling yet lingers within thee! By it thou art corrupted—thou art lost!"
Yet he could not kill her.
He consoled himself with the thought that she must certainly have been asleep and could, therefore, have heard nothing. It would be sufficient, he reflected, to take the precaution of securing the key of the door which opened on the outside steps leading down to the garden. Mashinka and the two lads would thus be all securely locked in.