It was between two and
three in the morning when she lighted a candle, wrapped herself in a
dressing-gown and began to make certain preparations for the day.
In the first place she locked both her doors very softly, and arranged a
stocking over each keyhole, twisting it round the keys themselves. Then
she got some stiff writing-paper, and a heavy ivory paper-knife, and
from the locked drawers she took that other package which was done up
in coarse paper.
From this she took some of the rough, half-pulverized white stuff, laid
it upon the marble top of the chest of drawers, and with the ivory
paper-knife, pressing heavily, she little by little crushed it as fine
as dust.
She then took nine of the eighteen little papers containing the arsenic,
which were left, opened each one at the end and poured out the contents
apart, into a little heap quite separate from the other. And of the
other, she took a pinch for each little paper and dropped it in--about
as much in quantity as she had taken out. Then she closed each of the
papers, carefully slipping one folded end into the other as chemists do;
when they were all closed, she made a tiny hole in each with the point
of a needle, so that she should know the bad from the good, if
necessary. This was only a precaution, and could do no harm. Then she
arranged the good and the bad in their little packages of five, each in
a tiny india-rubber band, laying bad ones and good ones alternately.
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