He rose and paced the room again for several minutes in silence; then taking from the table a small-hand lamp, he lit it, and clutching it with a nervous grasp in his left hand, he muttered,—
“Now—now. It is—time. Ada, you will not see another sun rise. You must die. ’Tis self-preservation, which even divines tell us is the first great law of nature, that forces me to do this act. I—I do not want to kill thee. No—no; but I—I must—I must do it; I cannot help the deed. Ada, you must die—die—die.”
He placed the lamp again upon the table, and approaching with a stealthy step a cupboard in the room, he took from it a double-edged poniard. With a trembling hand he placed the weapon conveniently within his vest, and then casting around him a hurried and scared glance, as if he expected to find some eyes fixed upon him, he walked to the door of the room.
There he paused, and, divested himself of his shoes, after which, with a slow, stealthy movement, he began ascending the stairs to the chamber in which reposed, in innocence and peace, the unconscious Ada.
Suddenly he paused, and staggered against the wall, as a new thought struck his mind.
“The hound! the hound!” he gasped. “I—I had forgotten the dog.”
Here seemed at once an insurmountable obstacle to the execution of his murderous intention, and for several minutes Jacob Gray sat down on the staircase in deep thought, while his face was distorted by contending passions of hate—fear—and rage.
“Curses—curses on the dog!” he muttered, as he ground his teeth together and clenched his hands in impotent malice. “To be foiled by a half-starved hound! I, Jacob Gray, with my life hanging as it were by a single thread, to be prevented from taking the secret means of preserving myself by this hateful dog. Curses! Curses! I—I—yes—yes. There is a chance—one chance, the poison that Learmont placed in my hands for the purpose of drugging Britton’s wine cup! That—yes, that may rid me of the dog! I will try. Let me recollect. The animal sleeps by the door, sometimes on the mat on the outside, and sometimes within the chamber. We shall see—we shall see—the poison! Ay, the poison!”
Cautiously he descended the few steps he had gained, and going to a drawer in the table, which he had the key of, and which stood close to the blazing fire, in the room he had so recently left, he took from it the phial of poison which he, Learmont, had given to him. After a moment’s thought, he repaired to the cupboard, and taking from it the remains of some meat, upon which he had dined, he poured at least one-half the contents of the small bottle of poison over it.