My thought was as quick as lightning, and the deed followed immediately.

The act, to my inner sense, had an extraordinary clearness.

I perceived the resistance of the corset and then something else, and then the sinking of the knife into a soft substance.

She clutched at the dagger with her hands, and cut herself with it, but could not restrain the blow.
"Long afterward, in prison when the moral revolution had been effected within me, I thought of that minute, I remembered it as far as I could, and I co-ordinated all the sudden changes.

I remembered the terrible consciousness which I felt,--that I was killing a wife, MY wife.
"I well remember the horror of that consciousness and I know vaguely that, having plunged in the dagger, I drew it out again immediately, wishing to repair and arrest my action.