' Surprised that she had not wrapped him up and told him he was to
go to sleep, the dog stood on the edge of the bed, watching her so
earnestly that she wondered if he knew what she was going to do. 'No, you
don't know, dear--do you? If you did, you wouldn't let me do it; you'd bark
the house down, I know you would, my own darling.' Clasping him to her
breast, she smothered him with kisses, then put him away in his corner,
covering him over for the night.
She felt neither grief nor fear. Through much suffering, thought and
sensation were, to a great extent, dead in her; and, in a sort of emotive
numbness, she laid her candlestick in its usual place on the chair by her
bedside; and, sitting up in bed, her night-dress carefully buttoned,
holding the tumbler half-filled with chloral, she tried to take a
dispassionate survey of her life. She thought of what she had endured, and
what she would have to endure if she did not take it. Then she felt she
must go, and without hesitation drank off the chloral. She placed the
tumbler by the candlestick, and lay down, remembering vaguely that a long
time ago she had decided that suicide was not wrong in itself. The last
thing she remembered was the clock striking eleven.
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