he thought how easily he might have smothered her, as she lay there
clasping his hand, with no one but themselves in the room; and as the
thought crossed his brain his eyes nearly started from his head, the
sweat ran down his face, he clutched the money in his trousers' pocket
till the coin left an impression on his flesh, and he gnashed his teeth
till his jaws ached with his own violence. But then, in that sick-room,
he had been afraid of her; he could not have touched her then for the
wealth of the Bank of England!--but now!

The devil sat within him, and revelled with full dominion over his
soul: there was then no feeling left akin to humanity to give him one
chance of escape; there was no glimmer of pity, no shadow of remorse,
no sparkle of love, even though of a degraded kind; no hesitation
in the will for crime, which might yet, by God's grace, lead to
its eschewal: all there was black, foul, and deadly, ready for the
devil's deadliest work. Murder crouched there, ready to spring, yet
afraid;--cowardly, but too thirsty alter blood to heed its own fears.
Theft,--low, pilfering, pettifogging, theft; avarice, lust, and
impotent, scalding hatred. Controlled by these the black blood rushed
quick to and from his heart, filling him with sensual desires below the
passions of a brute, but denying him one feeling or one appetite for
aught that was good or even human.

Again the next morning the doctor was questioned with intense anxiety;
"Was she going?--was she drooping?--had yesterday's horrid doubts
raised only a false alarm?" It was utterly beyond Barry's power to make
any attempt at concealment, even of the most shallow kind. "Well,
doctor, is she dying yet?" was the brutal question he put.

"She is, if anything, rather stronger;" answered the doctor, shuddering