But the notion of _euthanasia_ might well work for evil in a mind that had not a thought for the case any more than for the betterment of humanity, or indeed for anything but its own consciousness of pleasure or comfort.
Opinions, like drugs, work differently on different constitutions.
Hence the man is foolish who goes scattering vague notions regardless of the soil on which they may fall.
She was used to asking the question, What's the good?
but always in respect of something she wanted out of her way.
"What's the good of an hour or two more if you're not enjoying it ?" she said to herself again and again that Monday.

"What's the good of living when life is pain--or fear of death, from which no fear can save you ?" But the question had no reference to her own life: she was judging for another--and for another not for his sake, or from his point of view, but for her own sake, and from where she stood.
All the day she wandered about the house, such thoughts as these in her heart, and in her pocket a bottle of that concentrated which Mr.
Redmain was taking much diluted for medicine.

But she _hoped not to have to use it_.

If only Mr.Redmain would yield the conflict, and depart without another interview with the lawyer! But if he would not, and two drops from the said bottle, not taken by herself, but by another, would save her, all her life to come, from endless anxiety and grinding care, from weariness and disgust, and indeed from want; nor that alone, but save likewise that other from an hour, or two hours, or perhaps a week, or possibly two weeks, or--who could tell ?--it might be a month of pain and moaning and weariness, would it not be well ?--must it not be more than well?
She had not learned to fear temptation; she feared poverty, dependence, humiliation, labor, _ennui_, misery.

The thought of the life that must follow and wrap her round in the case of the dreaded disclosure was unendurable; the thought of the suggested frustration was not _so_ unendurable--was not absolutely unendurable--was to be borne--might be permitted to come--to return--was cogitated--now with imagined resistance, now with reluctant and partial acceptance, now with faint resolve, and now with determined resolution--now with the beaded drops pouring from the forehead, and now with a cold, scornful smile of triumphant foil and success.
Was she so very exceptionally bad, however?
You who hate your brother or your sister--you do not think yourself at all bad! But you are a murderer, and she was only a murderer.