"Caught in my own trap," she said; "frustrated by a girl—a child!—ay! and with exposure, perhaps punishment, before me. How she triumphs, doubtless, in that little malignant heart. How she will triumph when she brings forward her proofs, and overwhelms me with them—if she has them. Oh, yes, she has them! She is mighty careful never to say any thing of which she is not certain. I have remarked that in her from a child. She has them beyond doubt, and now she is sitting anticipating the pleasure of crushing me—enjoying the retrospect of my frustrated endeavors—thinking how she and Marlow will laugh together over a whole list of attempts that have failed, and purposes that I have not been able to execute. Yes, yes, they will laugh loud and gaily, and at the very altar, perhaps, will think with triumph that they are filling for me the last drop of scorn and disappointment. Never, never, never! It shall never be. That is the only way, methinks;" and she fell into dark and silent thought again.
The fit lasted some time, and then she spoke again, muttering the words between her teeth as she had previously done. "They will never marry with a mother's curse upon their union! Oh, no, no, I know her too well. She will not do that. That weak poppet may die before she recalls her opposition—must die—and then they will live on loving and wretched. But it must be made as bitter as possible. It must not stop there."
Again she paused and thought, and then said to herself, "That drug which the Italian monk sold me would do well enough if I did but fully know its effects. There are things which leave terrible signs behind them—besides it is old, and may have lost its virtue. I must run no risk of that—and it must be speedy as well as sure. I have but four and twenty hours—the time is very short;" and relapsing into silence again, she continued in deep and silent meditation till the carriage stopped at her own gates.
Mrs. Hazleton sat in the library that night for two or three hours, and studied diligently a large folio volume which she had taken down herself. She read, and she seemed puzzled. A servant entered to ask some unimportant question, and she waved him away impatiently. Then leaning her head upon her hand she thought profoundly. She calculated in her own mind what Emily knew—how much—how intimately, and how she had learned it. Such a thing as remorse she know not; but she had some fear, though very little—a sort of shrinking from the commission of acts more daring and terrible than any she had yet performed. There was something appalling—there is always something appalling—in the commission of a great new crime, and the turning back, as it were, of the mind of Mrs. Hazleton from the search for means to accomplish a deed determined, in order to calculate the necessity of that deed, proceeded from this sort of awe at the next highest step of evil to those which she had already committed.
"She must know all," said Mrs. Hazleton to herself, after having considered the matter for some moments deeply. "And she must have learned it accurately. I know her caution well. From whom can she have learned it?"
"From that young villain Ayliffe," was the prompt reply. "I was too harsh with him, and in his fit of rage he has gone away at once to tell this girl—or perhaps that old fool Dixwell. Most likely he has furnished her with evidence too, before he fled the country. Without that I could have set Marlow's discoveries at naught. Yet I doubt his having gone to Dixwell; he always despised him. Mean as he was himself, he looked upon him as a meaner. He would not go to him to whine and cant over him. He would go to the girl herself. Her he always loved, even in the midst of his violence and his rage. He would go to her or write to her beyond all doubt. She must be silenced. But I must deal with another first. Come what will, this marriage shall not take place. Besides, she is the most dangerous of the two. The girl might be frightened or awed into secresy, and it will take longer time to reach her, but nothing will keep that weak woman's tongue from babbling, and in four and twenty hours her consent will be given to this marriage. If I can but contrive it rightly, that at least may be stopped, and a part of my revenge obtained at all events. It must be so—it must be so."
She turned to the leaves of the book again, but nothing in the contents seemed to give her satisfaction. "That will be too long," she said, after having read about a third of a page. "Three or four days to operate! Who could wait three or four days when the object is security, tranquility, or revenge? Besides the case admits of no delay. Before three or four days all will be over."
She read again, and was discontented with what she read. "That will leave traces," she said. "It must be the Italian's dose, I believe, after all. Those monks are very skilful men, and perhaps it may not have lost its efficiency. It is easily tried," she exclaimed suddenly, and ascending quietly to her own dressing-room, she sought out from the drawer of an old cabinet a small packet of white powder, which she concealed in the palm of her hand. Then descending to the library again, she sat for a few minutes in dull, heavy thought, and then rang a hand-bell which stood upon her table.
"Bring me a small quantity of meat cut fine for the dog," she said, as soon as her servant appeared. "He seems ill; what has been the matter with him?"
"Nothing, madam," said the man, looking under the table where lay a beautiful small spaniel sound asleep. "He has been quite well all day."