"Anna, poor girl, was no more mistress of her actions at the time it happened than you, Mr. Drelincourt, had reason to believe yourself to be master of yours. Just then she was laboring under one of her recurrent attacks of mania. At such times, as you are aware, in all her actions, thoughts, and habits, she became again as a child of ten.
"But there were occasions when darker symptoms would betray themselves, when I caught little glimpses below the surface which caused even me who knew her so well and loved her so dearly to tremble and ask myself what still darker fate the future might have in store for her. Of such symptoms, however, I said nothing to any one. Where would have been the use of my doing so? No one could help her, nothing more could be done for her than had been already done. The future must be left to care for itself.
"To come to the fatal morning.
"Anna and I slept in separate rooms, with a door between, which, by her wish, was always kept open at night. I may add that it was my practice to sleep with my bunch of keys under my pillow. On the morning in question I awoke earlier than usual, and while the day was still very young. There was upon me an uneasy sense of something being wrong.
"Instinctively I felt for my keys. They were gone. I was out of bed in an instant, and, crossing to Anna's room, I looked in. It was empty. Then I noticed that the outer door of my room, which opened into the anteroom, was slightly ajar. Only giving myself time to thrust my feet into a pair of slippers and to wrap a shawl round my shoulders, I started to look for Anna, dreading I knew not what.
"The first thing I saw was my bunch of keys hanging from the lock of the baize covered door, one of which had been used to open it. From the anteroom I passed into the corridor, the doors opening into which were all shut, and so went swiftly forward till I reached the gallery at the head of the great staircase. Still there was no sign of Anna.
"While hesitating what to do next, I perceived that the door of Mrs. Drelincourt's dressing room was partly open. It seemed to me a most unlikely thing that I should find Anna there, yet it was impossible to answer for her actions while she was as she was. Before descending to the lower parts of the house I would satisfy myself so far. (I knew that you, sir, were away at the Cot.) Pushing wider the dressing room door, I went in and then paused. A slight noise in the bedroom drew me forward; on the soft carpet my footsteps were inaudible.
"Peeping cautiously through the divided portière, I beheld Anna standing by Mrs. Drelincourt's bed, still grasping the stiletto with which she had just accomplished her dreadful purpose. Her face was towards me, and the expression it wore just then I can never forget; my dreams were haunted by it for months afterwards. While gazing thus at her handiwork, a low maniacal laugh broke from her lips. A moment later she tossed the stiletto away, and made for the portière. I had barely time to shelter myself behind a screen before she passed me, going straight out of the room.
"Scarcely had she disappeared before I was in the bed chamber. I quickly satisfied myself that Mrs. Drelincourt was dead. For her nothing could be done, and my one thought now was how I could best screen the culprit. When I got back to my rooms, I found her fast asleep in bed, a lovely color mantling her cheeks, and her lips parted with a childlike smile.
"That morning, I remember, she slept a little later than usual, but when she awoke she was as gay and as full of innocent fun as, at such times, she nearly always was. She had slain Mrs. Drelincourt (whom, I have reason to know, she secretly hated) in a temporary access of homicidal mania, but her memory, on awaking, retained no recollection of it whatever."