an hour after midnight
I am rightly served -- for I designed that to be _ your _ fate ! ' ` Wretched woman , I pity you , ' said Frank , in a tone of commiseration . ` I deserve not your pity , ' she cried , writhing as if in great bodily torment -- ` my soul is stained with the guilt of a thousand crimes -- and the only reparation I can make you , to atone for the wrong I intended , is to warn you to fly from this house as from a pestilence ! This is the abode of murder -- it is a charnel-house of iniquity ; fly from hence , as you value your life -- for an hour after midnight my husband , the terrible Dead Man , will return , and although you frustrated me , you can not escape his vengeance , should he find you here . Ah , my God ! my brain burns -- the deadly potion is at work ! ' And thus the miserable woman continued to rave , until the powerful drug which she had taken fully accomplished its work , and she sank upon the floor in a state of death-like insensibility .