nce they were united he would
be wholly in Sally's hands. Not yet, though. He must get well. A quick
rush of relief came to her as a reassurance. She could have laughed at
her own panic. Of course Gaga was the solution. He could be made to
believe almost anything. But supposing ... supposing that he would
always be ill? Then indeed she would be better dead. Dead? But how could
she die? She might long for death; but death was not an oblivion that
could be called up at will. Sally pondered upon the possibilities.

The word "POISON" returned to her memory. Quickly there followed the
word "arsenic." Arsenic: what did she recall? Suddenly Sally remembered
that evening long ago when she had found her mother reading an account
of the Seddon trial. What had Seddon done? All the details came crowding
to her attention. He had given poison in food ... in food. And Miss ...
what was her name? Same as old Perce's-- Barrow. Seddon had given Miss
Barrow arsenic. It had made her sick. Sally shuddered. She did not want
to be sick. She had had enough of sickness in these past few weeks. To
her sickness was the abomination of disease.

A terrible shock ran through Sally's body. She lay panting, her heart
seeming to throb from her temples to her feet. Miss Barrow had been
constantly sick through taking arsenic, and they had only found it
out.... Gaga.... Sally's face grew violently hot. She could not breathe.
She sat feverishly up in bed, staring wildly. An idea had occurred to
her so monstrous that she was stricken with a sense of guilt and
self-horror such as she had never known.

xviii

All that night Sally dwelt with her terrible temptation. The more she
shrank from it the more stealthily it returned to her, like the slow
fingers of an incoming tide. So many circumstances gave colour to her
belief that the poison could be given without discovery that Sally found
every detail too easy to conceive. Gaga would be sick again and again,
would weaken, would.... Always her imagination refused to complete the
story. She covered her face with her hands and sought frantically to
hide from this loathsome whisper that pressed temptation upon her. Ill
and frightened, she lay turning into every posture of defiance and
weakness and irresolution, until the daylight was fully come; and then
Gaga's voice called feebly from the next room, and she must rise to tend
him with something of the guilt of a murderess oppressing her and
causing her during