The darkness could not hide the slim bottle corked with a slim blond cork, and so clear was the vision that she could read the label through the darkness. It was only partially gummed on the bottom, and she could read the pale writing. "To be taken before bedtime." The temptation struck through the darkness, sweet and dreamily seductive it entered her brain. She was tempted as by a dark, dreamless river; hushed in an unconscious darkness she would be upon that river, floating through a long, winding night towards a dim, very distant day. If she were to drink, darkness would sink upon her, and all this visible world, the continual sight of which she felt must end in lunacy, would pass from her. So great was the temptation that she did not dare to get out of bed and put the bottle away--if she did she must drink it, so she lay quite still, her face turned against the wall, trying to find courage in the thought that God had imposed the torture of these sleepless nights upon her in order that she might be saved from the eternal sleeplessness of hell. Mistakes are made in the preparation of medicines, but if no mistake had been made, a change in her health might unfit her for so large a dose, and if through either of these chances she were to die in her sleep, there was no question that she must awake in hell. She did not dare to go to the draught, but lay quite still, her head close against the wall, praying for darkness, crying for relief from this too fierce mentality; it seemed to be eating up the very substance of her brain. On the following evening she sat in her armchair watching the clock. It had struck eleven--that was the time for her going to bed, but the hour had become a redoubtable one. Bedtime filled her with fear, and the thought of another sleepless night deprived her of all courage. She did not dare to go upstairs. She sat in her armchair as if in terror of a mortal enemy. She had hidden the bottle, but her maid had ordered another. There were now two, sufficient to procure death, said her conscience, and since dinner the temptation to commit suicide had been growing in her brain; like a vulture perched upon a jag of mountain rock, she could see the temptation watching her. She tried not to see, but the thought grew blacker and larger--its beak was in her brain, and she was drawn, as if by talons, tremblingly from her chair. She was so weak that she could hardly cross the room; but the thought of death seemed to give her courage, and without it she thought she never would have had the strength to get upstairs. The attraction was extraordinary, and her powerlessness to resist it was part of the fascination, and she looked round the room like a victim looking for the knife. She could not see the bottle on her dressing-table, and accepting this as a favourable omen, she undressed and lay down.