ut yet this
peculiar night seemed to him to be eventful. He felt himself to be
lifted into some unwonted eagerness of life, something approaching
to activity. There was a deed to be done, and though he was not as
yet doing it, though he did not think that he intended to do it that
very night, yet the fact that he had made up his mind made him in
some sort aware that the dumb spirit which would not speak had been
exorcised, and that the crushing dullness of the latter days had
passed away from him. No; he could not do it that night; but he was
sure that he would do it. He had looked about for a way of escape,
and had been as though a dead man while he could not find it. He had
lived in terror of Mrs Griffith the housekeeper, of Farmer Griffith,
of the two Cantors, of Mr Apjohn, of that tyrant Cheekey, of his own
shadow,--while he and that will were existing together in the same
room. But it should be so no longer. There was one way of escape, and
he would take it!

Then he went on thinking of what good things might be in store for
him. His spirit had hitherto been so quenched by the vicinity of the
will that he had never dared to soar into thoughts of the enjoyment
of money. There had been so black a pall over everything that he had
not as yet realised what it was that Llanfeare might do for him. Of
course he could not live there. Though he should have to leave the
house untenanted altogether, it would matter but little. There was no
law to make a man live on his own estate. He calculated that he would
be able to draw L1500 a year from the property;--L1500 a year! That
would be clearly his own; on which no one could lay a finger; and
what enjoyment could he not buy with L1500 a year?

With a great resolve to destroy the will he went to bed, and slept
through the night as best he could. In the dark of his chamber, when
the candle was out, and he was not yet protected by his bed, there
came a qualm upon him. But the deed was not yet done, and the qualm
was kept under, and he slept. He even repeated the Lord's Prayer to
himself when he was under the clothes, struggling, however, as he did
so, not to bring home to himself that petition as to the leading into
temptation and the deliverance from evil.

The next day, the Friday, and the Saturday were passed in the same
way. The resolution was still there, but the qualms came every night.
And the salve to the qualm was always the same remembrance that the
deed had not been d