The two demons she had created alternately seized the day and the night:
the demon of money plagued her all day, the demon of murder pursued her
all night.
Every morning she had insatiate wants; all night she had remorseless
visitors; and, close before, the gallows filled the view, with the Devil
tying the noose.
That Devil she plainly saw, so busy on the gallows, fitting his ropes
and shrouds and long death-caps, and he evaded her, as if he had no
commerce with her now.
He was a cool and wistful man, perfectly happy in the prospect of
getting her, and not anxious about it, so sure was he of her soon and
complete possession.
He was always out in the jail-yard when she looked there, fixing his
ropes, sliding the nooses, examining the gallows, like a conscientious
carpenter; and in his complacent smile was an awful terror that froze
her dumb: he seemed so impersonal, so joyous, so industrious, as if he
had waited for her like a long creditor, and compounded the interest on
her sins till the infernal sum made him a millionaire in torments.
A Devil it was, real as a man--a slavemaster to whose quiet love of
cruelty eternal death was not enough; a man whose unscarred age, old as
the rising sun, still came and went in immortal youthfulness and
satisfaction, but for the nonce forgetting other debtors in the grip he
had on her, as his majestic expiation for his own shortcomings.
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