It mattered not how, it mattered not in what state, he should be hers.

No one would know what she had done.

It was nothing to her that he would be wholly unconscious of his past life--had she not already made him forget the most important part of it?
He would still be himself, and yet he would love her, and speak lovingly to her, and act as she would have him act.

Everything could be done, and she would risk nothing, for she would marry him and make him her lawful husband, and they would spend their lives together, in peace, in the house wherein she had so abased herself before him, foolishly believing that, as a mere woman, she could win him.
She paced the corridor, passing and repassing beneath the light of the single lamp that hung in the middle, walking quickly, with a sensation of pleasure in the movement and in the cold draught that fanned her cheek.
Then she heard footsteps distinct from the echo of her own and she stood still.

Two women were coming towards her through the gloom.