s,
was compelled to look into the very bottom of this thing. She saw there
no haunting face, no reproachful shade, no vision of remorse, no sort of
ideal conception. She saw there an object. That object was the gallows.
Mrs Verloc was afraid of the gallows.

She was terrified of them ideally. Having never set eyes on that last
argument of men's justice except in illustrative woodcuts to a certain
type of tales, she first saw them erect against a black and stormy
background, festooned with chains and human bones, circled about by birds
that peck at dead men's eyes. This was frightful enough, but Mrs Verloc,
though not a well-informed woman, had a sufficient knowledge of the
institutions of her country to know that gallows are no longer erected
romantically on the banks of dismal rivers or on wind-swept headlands,
but in the yards of jails. There within four high walls, as if into a
pit, at dawn of day, the murderer was brought out to be executed, with a
horrible quietness and, as the reports in the newspapers always said, "in
the presence of the authorities." With her eyes staring on the floor,
her nostrils quivering with anguish and shame, she imagined herself all
alone amongst a lot of strange gentlemen in silk hats who were calmly
proceeding about the business of hanging her by the neck. That--never!
Never! And how was it done? The impossibility of imagining the details
of such quiet execution added something maddening to her abstract terror.
The newspapers never gave any details except one, but that one with some
affectation was always there at the end of a meagre report. Mrs Verloc
remembered its nature. It came with a cruel burning pain into her head,
as if the words "The drop given was fourteen feet" had been scratched on
her brain with a hot needle. "The drop given was fourteen feet."

These words affected her physically too. Her throat became convulsed in
waves to resist strangulation; and the apprehension of the jerk was so
vivid that she seized her head in both hands as if to save it from being
torn off her shoulders. "The drop given was fourteen feet." No! that
must never be. She could not stand _that_. The thought of it even was
not bearable. She could not stand thinking of it. Therefore Mrs Verloc
formed the resolution to go at once and throw herself into the river off
one of the bridges.

This time she managed to refasten her veil. With her face as if masked,
all black from head to f