Read it through once

And suddenly the play of the word flashed up a wild suggestion. What if it were _she_ who was dead! If she were going to die--to die soon--and leave him free! The sensation of standing there, in that warm familiar room, and looking at her, and wishing her dead, was so strange, so fascinating and overmastering, that its enormity did not immediately strike him. He simply felt that chance had given him a new possibility to which his sick soul might cling. Yes, May might die--people did: young people, healthy people like herself: she might die, and set him suddenly free.