Wilkie Collins

“ I counted the three first ways of killing as I happened to remember them, in my books of instruction:—a way by stabbing; a way by poison; a way in a bed, by suffocation with a pillow. On that dreadful night, I never once called to mind what I find myself remembering now—the harmless past time, when our friends used to say: “Eunice is a good girl; we are all fond of Eunice.” Shall I ever be the same lovable creature again?
While I lay thinking, a strange thing happened. Philip, who had haunted me for days and nights together, vanished out of my thoughts. ”

“ The round of my thoughts stopped.
All this time, my eyes were still covered by the handkerchief which I had laid over them.
The darkness began to weigh on my spirits, and to fill me with distrust. I found myself suspecting that there was some change—perhaps an unearthly change—passing over the room. To remain blindfolded any longer was more than I could endure. I lifted my hand—without being conscious of the heavy sensation which, some time before, had laid my limbs helpless on the bed—I lifted my hand, and drew the handkerchief away from my eyes. ”

“ The whisper tempted me again. It followed again the train of my own thought. It said: “Kill her by poison.”
No. Revenge by poison steals its way to its end. The base deceitfulness of Helena’s crime against me seemed to call for a day of reckoning that hid itself under no disguise. I raised my cry to be delivered from the sight of the deadly tree. The changes which I have tried to describe followed once more the confession of what I felt; the darkness was dispelled for the third time.
I was standing in Helena’s room, looking at her as she lay asleep in her bed. ”