“I don’t know whether you believe in premonitions, in presentiments, Mr. Hetzel. I scarcely know whether I do, myself. But from the moment I woke up, on the morning of July 30th, I was possessed by a strange, vague, yet irresistible foreboding that something was going to happen—something extraordinary, something of importance. At first this was simply a not altogether unpleasant feeling of expectancy. As the day wore on, however, it intensified. It became a fear, then a dread, then a breathless terror. I could ascribe it to no rational cause. I struggled with it—endeavored to shake it off. No use. It clutched at my heart—tightly—more tightly. I sought to reassure myself, by having recourse to a little materialism. I said, ’It is because you are not as well as usual to-day. It is the reaction of body upon mind.’ Despite the utmost I could say, the feeling grew and grew upon me, till it was well-nigh insupportable. Yet I could not force it to take a definite shape. Was it that something had happened, or was going to happen, to my mother? to Mr. Nathan? to me? I could not tell—all I knew was that my heart ached, that at every slightest sound it would start into my mouth—then palpitate so madly that I could scarcely catch my breath.
“I had not seen Bernard Peixada at all that day. Whether he was in the house, or absent from it, I had not inquired. But just before dinner-time—at about six o’clock—he entered my room. My heart stood still. Now, I felt, what I had been dreading since early morning, was on the point of accomplishment. I tried to nerve myself for the worst. Probably he would announce some bad news about my mother.—But I was mistaken. He said only this: ’After dinner, Judith, you will call the servants to your room, and give them leave of absence for the night. They need not return till to-morrow morning. Do you understand?’
“I understood and yet I did not understand. I understood the bald fact—that the servants were to have leave of absence for the night—but the significance of the fact I did not understand. I knew very well that Bernard Peixada had a motive for granting them this indulgence, that it was not due to a pure and simple impulse of good-nature on his part: but what the motive was, I could not divine. I confess, the fear that had been upon me was augmented. So long as our two honest, kindly Irish girls were in the house, I enjoyed a certain sense of security. How defenseless should I be, with them away! A thousand wild alarms beset my imagination. Perhaps the presentiment that had oppressed me all day, meant that Bernard Peixada was meditating doing me a bodily injury. Perhaps this was why he wished the servants to be absent. Unreasonable? As you please.
“‘Is this privilege,’ I asked, ’to be extended to the coachman, also?’
“‘Who told you to concern yourself about the coachman? I will look after him,’ was Bernard Peixada’s reply.
“I concluded that the case stood thus:—I was to be left alone with Bernard Peixada and Edward Bolen. The pair of them had something to j accomplish in respect to me—which—well, in the fullness of time I should learn the nature of their j designs. I remembered the paper that I had stolen. Had Bernard Peixada discovered that it was missing, and concealed the discovery from me? Was he now bent upon recovering the paper? and upon chastising me, as, from his point of view, I deserved to be chastised? Again, in the fullness of time I should learn. I strove to possess my soul in patience.
“Bernard Peixada left me. One of our servants brought me my dinner. I told her that she might go out for the night, and asked her to send the other girl to my room. To this latter, also, I delivered the message that Bernard Peixada had charged me with.—When they tried me for murder, Mr. Hetzel, they produced both of these girls as witnesses against me, hoping to show, by their testimony, that I had prearranged to be alone in the house with Bernard Peixada and Edward Bolen, so that I could take their lives at my ease, with no one by to interfere, or to survive and tell the story!
“The long July twilight faded out of the sky. Night fell. I was alone in the house—isolated from the street—beyond hope of rescue—at the mercy of Bernard Peixada and his coachman, Edward Bolen. I lay still in bed, waiting for their onslaught.
“And I waited and waited; and they made no onslaught. I heard the clock strike eight, then nine, then ten, then eleven. No sign from the enemy. Gradually the notion grew upon me—I could not avoid it—that I had been absurdly deluding myself—that my alarms had been groundless. Gradually I became persuaded that my premonition had been the nonsensical fancy of a sick woman. Gradually my anxiety subsided, and I fell asleep.
“How long I slept I do not know. Suddenly I awoke. In fewer seconds than are required for writing it, I leaped from profound slumber to wide wakefulness. My heart was beating violently; my breath was coming in quick, short gasps; my forehead was wet with perspiration.