tch shall have died in her sleep; apoplexy!
capital indeed; no tell-tales either. Well, I must set to work."

Can mortal mind conceive that sickening office?--To face the strangled
corpse, yet warm; to lift the fearful burden in his arms, and order out
the heavily-yielding limbs in the ease of an innocent sleep? To arrange
the bed, smooth down the tumbled coverlid, set every thing straight
about the room, and erase all tokens of that dread encounter? It needed
nerves of iron, a heart all stone, a cool, clear head, a strong arm, a
mindful, self-protecting spirit; but all these requisites came to
Simon's aid upon the instant; frozen up with fear, his heart-strings
worked that puppet-man rigidly as wires; guilt supplied a reckless
energy, a wild physical power, which actuates no human frame but one
saturate with crime, or madness; and in the midst of those terrific
details, the murderer's judgment was so calm and so collected, that
nothing was forgotten, nothing unconsidered--unless, indeed, it were
that he out-generalled himself by making all too tidy to be natural.
Hence, suspicion at the inquest; for the "apoplexy" thought was really
such a good one, that, but for so exact a laying out, the fat old corpse
might have easily been buried without one surmise of the way she met her
end. Again and again, in the history of crimes, it is seen that a "Judas
hangs himself;" and albeit, as we know, the murderer has hitherto
escaped detection, still his own dark hour shall arrive in its due
place.

The dreadful office done, he asked himself again, or maybe took counsel
of the devil (for that evil master always cheats his servants), "What
shall I do with my reward, this crock--these crocks of gold? It might be
easy to hide one of them, but not all; and as to leaving any behind,
that I won't do. About opening them to see which is which--"

"I tell you what," said the tempter, as the clock struck three,
"whatever you do, make haste; by morning's dawn the house and garden
will be searched, no doubt, and the crocks found in your possession.
Listen to me--I'm your friend, bless you! remember the apoplexy. Pike
Island yonder is an unfrequented place; take the punt, hide all there
now, and go at your best leisure to examine afterwards; but whatever you
do, make haste, my man."

Then Jennings crept out by the lawn-door, thereby rousing the house-dog;
but he skirted the laurels in their shadow, and it was dark and
mizzling, so he reached