He believed that it would be a long time before anyone came into that room again.

The canary would be days without food; it was likely it would starve, would die there, hour by hour, in its little gilt prison.

McTeague resolved to take it with him.
He took down the cage, touching it gently with his enormous hands, and tied a couple of sacks about it to shelter the little bird from the sharp night wind.
Then he went out, locking all the doors behind him, and turned toward the ferry slips.

The boats had ceased running hours ago, but he told himself that by waiting till four o'clock he could get across the bay on the tug that took over the morning papers.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * Trina lay unconscious, just as she had fallen under the last of McTeague's blows, her body twitching with an occasional hiccough that stirred the pool of blood in which she lay face downward.

Towards morning she died with a rapid series of hiccoughs that sounded like a piece of clockwork running down.
The thing had been done in the cloakroom where the kindergarten children hung their hats and coats.