She handled, one after another, the three objects--the razor, the revolver, the little bottle--as if endeavouring to make a selection.
'I am too optimistic. There is my fault--I always hope. It is an error. I have always had in my life such evil fortune that, when happiness came, I should have known it would not endure--that the night would be blacker because the sun once shone; that for me, henceforward, it would be always night. I was a fool; so happy I forgot, so I pay for it. Well, I will take my fate into my own hands and make an ending when I choose. I should have liked to see the little one--my little one.' A softness came into the voice of which one might hardly have thought it capable. 'To have held it in my arms; to press it to my breast; to touch its lips with mine. I should, indeed, have liked to be a mother. Yet better not; it might have been like its father. That would have been the worst of all. Which is it to be--steel? lead? a little drink? Why is it I cannot decide? What's that?'
She had Miss Bewicke's dainty drawing-room to herself. An incongruous object she seemed in it, she and her gruesome playthings. A sound appeared to have caught her ear. She put her right hand behind her back; in it, the three assistants of death. Moving to a door which was on the opposite side of the room, turning the handle softly, she passed half-way through it, then stood and listened.
'Quite still, yet. The noise did not come from there. There was a noise. Ah!'
The interjection was in response to a rat-tat-tat on the knocker. The room was illuminated by a dozen electric lights. Disconnecting one after the other, she allowed but a single one to remain alight. Comparatively, the apartment was in darkness.
'That's not Ellen's knock, nor Jane's; she is not already back again. Besides, she also does not knock like that. Who is it?'
The knocking came again--slightly, more insistently than before.
'If it is some bothering visitors, they will have a short answer, I promise them. When I do not open, why do they not take a hint and go? I am not to be disturbed when I am making my arrangements to remain undisturbed for ever.'
The knocking was repeated for a third time.
'So, they persist! Well, I will show them. They shall see.'