The String of Pearls (1850), p. 467

"Thank Heaven!" she said. Thank Heaven! but oh, why am I here? Why have I come here again, instead of making my escape by the chapel door? This is a fatal error. Oh, Heaven save me! Is there yet time? Does he linger yet sufficiently long in the vaults, to enable me to take refuge among the pews?"
These were questions which the stillness in the chapel below seemed to answer in the affirmative, and once more Mrs. Oakley approached the stair-
case to descend it. She got three steps down the stairs, and then she heard a footstep below. It was too late. Lupin was coming up. Yes, it was too late! He approached with a heavy and regular footfall. That heaviness and regularity were sufficient evidences that he had not heard her, and had no suspicion that she nor any one else had been a witness to his crime. So far she was comparatively safe, but the blessed chance of escape without any meeting with him was gone.
Up—up, he came! Mrs. Oakley retreated step by step as he advanced. She passed into the chamber, which may for distinction's sake be called her own room, and thtre she cast herself upon the couch, and closed her eyes shudderingly.
She had a presentiment that Lupin would come to look at her to see that she still slumbered. She was right.
He had not been in the room where the deed of blood had been committed many minutes, when he opened the door of communication between the two apartments, and came in not with the lantern, but with the candle he had left burning upon the table. He did not come above three steps into the room, and then he spoke—
"Sister Oakley it is time to pray."
Mrs. Oakley moved not—spoke not.
"Sister Oakley, will you be so good as to rise, and go to the corner of the next street on a little errand for me?"
How tempting this was! but Mrs, Oakley had the discretion to imagine the wolf in the sheep's clothing now; she saw in all this only a clear mode of ascertaining if she were awake or not, and she would not speak nor move.
This was, in truth, a wise policy upon the part of Mrs. Oakley. That it was so, became abundantly apparent when Lupin spoke again.
"All is right," he said. "The opiate has done its work bravely, I feel easy now, and yet I don't know how I came for a moment to feel otherwise, or
to imagine for a moment there was danger from this woman. If I only had any proof that there was, I would soon put it beyond her power to be mischievous. But, no—no, she has slept soundly and knows nothing."
It required, indeed, no ordinary nerve during this speech of Lupin's, for Mrs. Oakley to preserve the stillness of apparent deep sleep; but we none of us know what we can do until we are put to it; after all, what a just punishment to Mrs. Oakley was all that she was now going through. She had had more faith in that bold, bad, mounteback of a parson than in Heaven itself, and she was justly punished.
Having then made this trial of her sleeping state, Mr. Lupin retired with the candle again, qu ite satisfied—at least one would have thought so; and as he
had talked of the amazing ease of mind he felt now that he had, murdered his wife, it was rather surprising that he did not go to bed and sleep serenely instead of pacing his room to and fro for more than four hours mumbling disjointed words and sentences to himself as he did so, for Mrs. Oakley heard him, but she did not dare to move.
Suddenly he flung open the door between the two rooms, and in a startling voice he cried—
"Fire! fire!"
It was truly a wonder that upon this Mrs. Oakley did not jump up, it sounded so very alarming; but it was not to be, and with a presence of mind that surely
was not all her own, she yet remained profoundly still.