Frankenstein Chapter 20 Summary: The Female Destroyed. Arrest in Ireland

One evening the moon rises from the sea. He sits idle in the laboratory and, for the first time, the wickedness of the promise bursts on him. She has sworn nothing. She might refuse a compact made before her birth. They might hate each other. She might turn toward the superior beauty of man. Children would be a race of devils. Future ages might curse him as their pest, the man who bought his own peace with the species.

He looks up. The daemon is at the casement, a ghastly grin. Victor tears the unfinished female to pieces. A howl of despair, and the being withdraws. Hours later the door opens. You have destroyed the work. I left Switzerland with you. I crept along the Rhine. Do you dare destroy my hopes. Victor breaks the promise. The creature answers: you are my creator, but I am your master. Shall each man find a wife, and I be alone. Revenge henceforth dearer than light or food. I shall be with you on your wedding-night.

Victor hears a death-warrant for himself. He thinks of Elizabeth's tears, not of her throat. He packs the relics with stones, sails out four miles, and casts the basket when a cloud covers the moon. Sleep in the skiff; a northeast wind; thirst; land at last, a neat harbour, English spoken. It is the custom of the Irish to hate villains. A man taps his shoulder: Mr. Kirwin, a magistrate, and the death of a gentleman found murdered last night. Innocent, he thinks, and follows. He must pause before he can tell what the room contains.