11 A.M.
And at a sudden impulse , before I knew what I was doing , I was in the water swimming . The smaller of the islands was two hundred yards away , and thither I swam , rested some minutes , and thence to the Castle . I did not once look behind me . * * * * * Well , from 11 A.M. till five in the afternoon , I thought it all out , lying in the damp flannels on my face on the sofa in the recess beside my bed , where it was quite dark behind the tattered piece of arras : and what things I suffered that day , and what deeps I sounded , and what prayers I prayed , God knows . What infinitely complicated the awful problem was this thought in my head : that to kill her would be far more merciful to her than to leave her alone , having killed myself : and , Heaven knows , it was for her alone that I thought , not at all caring for myself . To kill her was better : but to kill her with my own hands -- that was too hard to expect of a poor devil like me , a poor common son of Adam , after all , and never any sublime self-immolator , as two or three of them were . And hours I lay there with brows convulsed in an agony , groaning only those words : ` To kill her !