.

"At last I am rid of her," she muttered. "She would have been a spy over
me. I hope I have frightened her into the plague. But if she dies of
fear, it will answer my purpose as well. And now for my husband."

Taking up the lamp, and shading it with her hand, she gazed at his
ghastly countenance.

"He slumbers tranquilly," she muttered, after contemplating him for some
time, adding with a chuckling laugh, "it would be a pity to waken him."

And seating herself on a stool near the pallet, she turned over in her
mind in what way she could best execute her diabolical purpose.

While she was thus occupied, the messenger from Doctor Hodges arrived
with a bundle of blankets and several phials and pots of ointment. The
man offered to place the blankets on the pallet, but Judith would not
let him.

"I can do it better myself, and without disturbing the poor sufferer,"
she said. "Give my dutiful thanks to your master. Tell him my husband's
mother, old widow Malmayns, fancies herself attacked by the plague, and
if he will be kind enough to visit her, she lodges in the upper attic of
a baker's house, at the sign of the Wheatsheaf, in Little Distaff-lane,
hard by."

"I will not fail to deliver your message to the doctor," replied the
man, as he took his departure.

Left alone with her husband a second time, Judith waited till she
thought the man had got out of the cathedral, and then rising and taking
the lamp, she repaired to the charnel, to make sure it was untenanted.
Not content with this, she stole out into Saint Faith's, and gazing
round as far as the feeble light of her lamp would permit, called out in
a tone that even startled herself, "Is any one lurking there?" but
receiving no other answer than was afforded by the deep echoes of the
place, she returned to the vault. Just as she reached the door, a loud
cry burst upon her ear, and rushing forward, she found that her husband
had wakened.

"Ah!" roared Malmayns, raising himself in bed, as he perceived her, "are
you come back again, you she-devil? Where is my mother? Where is
Kerrich? What have you done with them?"

"They have both got the plague," replied his wife. "They caught it from
you. But never mind them. I will watch over you as long as you live."

"And that will be for years, you accursed jade," replied the sexton;
"Dr. Hodges says I shall recover."

"You have got worse since he left you," replied Judith. "Lie down, and
let me throw these blankets o