? Would he make her rob the church--murder the
abbess in her sleep? Bad, but not bad enough.

Unorna started. A deed suggested itself so hellish, so horrible in its
enormity, so far beyond all conceivable human sin, that for one moment
her brain reeled. She shuddered again and again, and groped for support
and leaned against the wall in a bodily weakness of terror. For one
moment she, who feared nothing, was shaken by fear from head to foot,
her face turned white, her knees shook, her sight failed her, her teeth
chattered, her lips moved hysterically.

But she was strong still. The thing she had sought had come to her
suddenly. She set her teeth, and thought of it again and again, till she
could face the horror of it without quaking. Is there any limit to the
hardening of the human heart?

The distant bells rang out the call to midnight prayer. Unorna stopped
and listened. She had not known how quickly time was passing. But it was
better so. She was glad it was so late, and she said so to herself, but
the evil smile that was sometimes in her face was not there now. She
had thought a thought that left a mark on her forehead. Was there any
reality in that jesting contract with Keyork Arabian?

She must wait before she did the deed. The nuns would go down into the
lighted church, and kneel and pray before the altar. It would last some
time, the midnight lessons, the psalms, the prayers--and she must be
sure that all was quiet, for the deed could not be done in the room
where Beatrice was sleeping.

She was conscious of the time now, and every minute seemed an hour, and
every second was full of that one deed, done over and over again before
her eyes, until every awful detail of the awful whole was stamped
indelibly upon her brain. She had sat down now, and leaning forwards,
was watching the innocent woman and wondering how she would look when
she was doing it. But she was calm now, as she felt that she had never
been in her life. Her breath came evenly, her heart beat naturally, she
thought connectedly of what she was about to do. But the time seemed
endless.

The distant clocks chimed the half hour, three-quarters, past midnight.
Still she waited. At the stroke of one she rose from her seat, and
standing beside Beatrice laid her hand upon the dark brow.

A few questions, a few answers followed. She must assure herself that
her victim was in the right state to execute minutely all her commands.
Then she opened the d