Then he rose, went up stairs stealthily, paused a moment opposite Margaret’s door, and entered the drawing-room. Apparently he did not find any of the chairs in the dining-room comfortable enough; for he chose a large and heavy _fauteuil_, took it up in his arms, and began to carry it out In the passage, just opposite Margaret’s chamber, he stumbled so heavily that he fell, and the weighty piece of furniture was dashed against the door of the sick-room, making a terrible noise. He picked it up, and retired silently to the dining-room. “That would have wakened the dead,” he whispered to himself, “and she is not dead--yet. She is certain to see the oranges, and take one of them, and then--” The reflection did not seem to relieve him, as he sat, gnawing his mustache, in the chair he had brought down with him. Now the deed was being accomplished, even his craven heart awoke to a kind of criminal remorse. Now anxiety for the issue made him wish the act undone, or frustrated; now he asked himself if there were no more certain and less perilous way. So intent was his eagerness that a strange kind of lucidity possessed him. He felt as if he beheld and heard what was passing in the chamber of sickness, which he had made a chamber of Death. She has wakened--she has looked round--she has seen the poisoned fruit--she has blessed him for his kindness in bringing it--she has tasted the oranges--she has turned to sleep again--and the unrelenting venom is at its work! Oh, strange forces that are about us, all inevitably acting, each in his hour and his place, each fulfilling his law without turning aside to the right hand or to the left! The rain-drop running down the pane, the star revolving round the sun of the furthest undiscoverable system, the grains of sand sliding from the grasp, the poison gnawing and burning the tissues--each seems to move in his inevitable path, obedient to an unrelenting will. Innocence, youth, beauty--that will spares them not. The rock falls at its hour, whoever is under it. The deadly drug slays, though it be blended with the holy elements. It is a will that moves all things--_mens agitat molem_; and yet we can make that will a slave of our own, and turn this way and that the blind steadfast forces, to the accomplishment of our desires. It was not, naturally, with these transcendental reflections that the intellect of Mr. Cranley was at this moment engaged. If he seemed actually to be present in Margaret’s chamber, watching every movement and hearing every heart-beat of the girl he had doomed, his blue lips and livid face, from which he kept wiping the cold drops, did not therefore speak of late ruth, or the beginning of remorse. It was entirely on his own security and chances of escaping detection that he was musing.