CHAPTER XI.—“HOW SHE ENDEAVORED TO EXPLAIN HER LIFE.”

THURSDAY morning it rained. Hetzel was seated in Mrs. Hart’s

dining-room, making such an apology for a breakfast as, under the

circumstances, could be expected of him, when the waitress announced

that Josephine was in the kitchen, and wished to speak with her master.

“All right,” said Hetzel; “ask her to step this way.”

Josephine presented herself. Not without some embarrassment, she

declared that she had heard what rumor had to say of Mrs. Ripley’s

imprisonment and of Mr. Ripley’s sickness, and that she was anxious to

learn the very truth of the matter from Hetzel’s lips. Hetzel replied

good-naturedly to her interrogations; and at length Josephine rose to go

her way. But having attained the door, she halted and faced about.

“Ach Gott!” she exclaimed. “I was forgetting about these.” She

drew a bunch of letters from her pocket, and deposited them upon the

table beside Hetzel’s plate.

Alone, Hetzel picked the letters up, and began to study their

superscriptions. One by one, he threw them aside without breaking their

seals, till at last “Hello!” he cried, “who has been writing a

book for me to read? Half an inch thick, as I’m alive; looks like

a lady’s hand, too; seems somehow as though I recognized it. Let me

see.—Ah! I remember. It must be from her!”

Without further preliminary, he pushed back his chair, tore the envelope

open, and set out to read the missive through.

“Dear Mr. Hetzel: I received a very kind note from you last night,

and I should have answered it at once, only I had so much to say that I

thought it would be better to wait till morning, in order to begin

and finish it at a sitting. The lights are turned off here at nine

o’clock: and therefore if I had begun to write last evening, I should

have been interrupted in the midst of it; and that would have rendered

doubly difficult what in itself is difficult enough.

“I have much to explain, much to justify, much to ask forgiveness for.

I am going to bring myself to say things to you, which, a few days ago,

I believed it would be impossible for me to say to any living being,

except my husband; and it would have been no easy matter to say them to

him. But a great change has happened in the last few days. Now I can not

say those things to my husband—never can. Now my wretched failure of a

life is nearly ended. I am going to a prison where, I know very well, I

shall not survive a great while.

“And something, which there is no need to analyze, impels me to put in

writing such an explanation of what I have done and left undone in this

world, as I may be able to make. Perhaps I am prompted to this course by

pride, or if you choose, by vanity. However that may be, I do feel that

in justice to myself as well as to my friends, I ought to try to state

the head and front of my offending so as to soften the judgment that

people aware only of my outward acts, and ignorant of my inner motives,

would be disposed to pass upon me. I have ventured to address myself to

you, instead of to Mrs. Hart, out of consideration for her. It would be

too hard for her to have to read this writing through. You, having read

it, can repeat its upshot to her in such a manner as to make it easier

for her to bear. I know that you will be willing to do this, because I

know that both she and I have always had a friend in you.

“For my own assistance, let me state clearly beforehand the points

upon which I must touch in this letter. First, I must explain why,

having a blot upon my life—being, that is to say, who I am—I allowed

Arthur Ripley to marry me. Then I must go on to perform that most

painful task of all—tell the story of the death of Bernard Peixada and

Edward Bolen. Next, I must justify—what you appear to misunderstand,

though the grounds of it are really very simple—the deep resentment

which I can not help cherishing against your bosom friend, my husband.

Finally, I must give the reasons that induced me to plead guilty of

murder an hour ago in court.

“But no. I have put things in their wrong order at the outset. It will

not be possible for me to explain why I consented to become Arthur’s

wife, until I have given you the true history of Bernard Peixada’s

death. I must command my utmost strength to do this. I must forget

nothing.

“I must force myself to recount every circumstance, hateful as the

whole subject is. I must search my memory, subdue my feelings, and as

dispassionately as will be possible, put the entire miserable tale in

writing. I pray God to help me.

“I am just twenty-six years old—ten months younger than Arthur. My

birthday fell while he and I were at New Castle together—August 4th.

How little I guessed then that in ten days every thing would be so

altered! It is strange. I trusted him as I trusted myself. I could not

conceive the possibility of his deceiving me. He seemed so sincere, so

simple-minded, so single-hearted, I could as easily have fancied a toad

issuing from his mouth, as a lie. Yet all the time—even while we were

alone together there in New Castle—he was lying to me. That whole

fortnight—that seemed so wonderfully serene and pure and light—was

one dark falsehood. Even then, he was having my career investigated here

in New York, behind my back. And I—I had offered to tell him every

thing. Painful as it would have been, I should have told him the whole

story; but he would not let me.

“He preferred to hear Benjamin Peixada’s—my enemy’s—version

of it. Even now, when I have—plenty—to remind me of the truth, even

now, I can scarcely believe it.

“But I must not deviate. As I was saying, I am twenty-six years old.

More than six years ago, when I was nineteen, nearing twenty, my father

said to me one day, ’Mr. Peixada has done us the honor to ask for your

hand in marriage. We have accepted. So, on the eighth of next August,

you will be married to him.’

“You can not realize, Mr. Hetzel, a tithe of the horror I experienced

when my father spoke those words to me, until I have gone back further

still, and told something of my life up to that time. At this moment, as

I recall the occasion of my father’s saying that to me, my heart turns

to ice, my cheeks burn, my limbs quake, my nature recoils with disgust

and loathing. It is painful to have to go over it all again, to have to

live through it all again; yet that is what I have started out to do.

“You must know, to begin with, that my father was a watchmaker, and

that he kept a shop on Second Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh Streets.

He was a man of great intelligence, of uncommon cultivation, and of

a most gentle and affectionate disposition; but he was a Jew of the

sternest orthodoxy, and he held old-fashioned, orthodox notions of the

obedience children owe to their parents. My father in his youth had

intended to become a physician; but while he was a student in Berlin, in

1848, the revolution broke out; he took part in it; and as a consequence

he had to leave Germany and come to America before he had won his

diploma. Here, friendless, penniless, he fell in with a jeweler,

named Oppenhym, who offered to teach him his trade. Thus he became an

apprentice, then a journeyman, finally a proprietor. I was born in the

house on Second Avenue, in the basement of which my father kept his

shop. We lived up stairs. Our family consisted only of my father and

mother, myself, and my father’s intimate friend, Marcus Nathan.

Mr. Nathan was a very learned gentleman, who had been a widower and

childless for many years, and who acted as chazzan in our synagogue.

It was to him that my father confided my education. It was he who first

taught me to read and write and to care for books and music. How good

and loyal a friend he was to me you will learn later on. He died early

in 1880.... I did not go to school till I was thirteen years old. Then

I was sent to the public school in Twelfth Street, and thence to the

Normal College, where I graduated in 1876. I studied the piano at home

under the direction of a woman named Emily Millard—an accomplished

musician, but unkind and cruel. She used to pull my hair and pinch me,

when I made mistakes; and afterward, when they tried me in the court of

General Sessions for Bernard Peixada’s murder, Miss Millard came and

swore that I was bad.

“Bernard Peixada—whom the newspapers described as ’a retired

Jewish merchant’—was a pawnbroker. His shop was straight across the

street from ours. I never in my life saw another structure of brick and

mortar that seemed to frown with such sinister significance, with such

ominous suggestiveness, upon the street in front of it as did that

house of Bernard Peixada’s. It was a brick house; but the bricks were

concealed by a coat of dark gray stucco, with blotches here and there

that were almost black. The shop, of course, was on the ground floor.

Its broad windows were protected, like those of a jail, by heavy iron

bars. Within them was exhibited an assortment of such goods and chattels

as the pawnbroker had contrived to purchase from distress—musical

instruments, household ornaments, kitchen utensils, firearms, tarnished

suits of uniform, faded bits of women’s finery—ex voto offerings at

the shrine of Mammon. Behind these, all was darkness, and mystery, and

gloom. Over the door, three golden balls—golden they had been once,

but were no longer, thanks to the thief, Time, abetted by wind and

weather—the pawnbroker’s escutcheon, swayed in the breeze. Higher up

still—big, white, ghastly letters on a sable background—hung a sign,

bearing a legend like this: B. PEIXADA.

MONEY LENT ON WATCHES, JEWELRY, PRECIOUS STONES, AND ALL VARIETIES OF

PERSONAL PROPERTY.

“And on the side door, the door that let into the private hallway

of the house, was screwed a solemn brass plate, with ’B. Peixada’

engraved in Old English characters upon it. (When Bernard Peixada

retired from business, he was succeeded by one B. Peinard. On taking

possession, Mr. Peinard, for economy’s sake, caused the last four

letters of Bernard Peixada’s name on the sign to be painted out, and

the corresponding letters of his own name to be painted in: so that, to

this day, the time-stained PEI stands as it used to stand years ago, and

contrasts oddly with the more recent word that follows.) As I have

said, the shop windows were defended by an iron grating. The other

windows—those of the three upper stories—were hermetically sealed.

I, at least, never saw them open. The blinds, once green, doubtless, but

blackened by age, were permanently closed; and the stucco beneath them

was fantastically frescoed with the dirt that had been washed from them

by the rain.

“I think it was partly due to these black blinds, and’ to the queer

shapes that the dirt had taken on the wall, that the house had that

peculiarly sinister aspect that I have spoken of. At all events,

you could not glance at its façade without shuddering. As early a

recollection as any that I have, is of how I used to sit at our front

windows, and gaze over at Bernard Peixada’s, and work myself into a

very ecstasy of fear by trying to imagine the dark and terrible things

that were stored behind them. My worst nightmares used to be that I was

a prisoner in Bernard Peixada’s house. I never dreamed that some time

my most hideous nightmare would be surpassed by the fact.

“But if I used to terrify myself by the sight of Bernard Peixada’s

dwelling, much keener was the terror with which Bernard Peixada’s

person inspired me. Picture to yourself a—creature—six feet tall,

gaunt as a skeleton, always dressed in black—in black broadcloth, that

glistened like a snake’s skin—with a head—my pen revolts from

an attempt to describe it. Yet I must describe it, so that you may

appreciate a little what I endured when my father said that he had

chosen Bernard Peixada for my husband. Well, Bernard Peixada’s head

was thus: a hawk’s beak for a nose, a hawk’s beak inverted for a

chin; lips, two thin, blue, crooked lines across his face, with yellow

fangs behind them, that shone horribly when he laughed; eyes, two black,

shiny beads, deep-set beneath prominent, black, shaggy brows, with the

malevolence of a demon aflame deep down in them; skull, destitute of

honest hair, but kept warm by a curling, reddish wig; skin, dry

and sallow as old parchment, on which dark wrinkles were traced—a

cryptogram, with a meaning, but one which I could not perfectly

decipher; these were the elements of Bernard Peixada’s

physiognomy—fit features for a bird of prey, were they not? Have you

ever seen his brother, Benjamin? the friend of Arthur Ripley? Benjamin

is corpulent, florid, and on the whole not ill-looking—morally and

physically vastly superior to his elder brother. But fancy Benjamin

pumped dry of blood, shrunken to the dimensions of a mummy, then

bewigged, then caricatured by an enemy, and you will form a tolerably

vivid conception of how Bernard Peixada looked. But his looks were not

all. His voice, I think, was worse. It was a thin, piercing voice

that, when I heard it, used to set my heart palpitating with a hundred

horrible emotions. It was a dry, metallic voice that grated like a

file. It was a sharp, jerky voice that seemed to chop the air, each

word sounding like a blow from an ax. It was a voice which could not be

forced to say a kind and human thing. Cruelty and harshness were natural

to it. I can hear it ringing in my ears, as I am writing now; and it

makes my heart sink and my hand tremble, as it used to do when I

indeed heard it, issuing from his foul, cruel mouth. Will you be

surprised—will you think I am exaggerating—when I say that Bernard

Peixada’s hideousness did not end with his voice? I should do his

portrait an injustice if I were to omit mention of his hands—his

claws, rather, for claws they were shaped like; and, instead of fingers,

they were furnished with long, brown, bony talons, terminated by black,

untrimmed nails. I do not believe I ever saw Bernard Peixada’s hands

in repose. They were in perpetual, nervous motion—the talons clutching

at the air, if at nothing more substantial—even when he slept. The

most painful dreams that I have had, since God delivered me of him, have

been those in which I have seen his hands, working, working, the fingers

writhing like serpents, as they were wont to do in life. Oh, such a

monstrosity! Oh, such a wicked travesty of man! This, Mr. Hetzel, was

the person to f-whom my father proposed to marry me. There was no one to

plead for me, no one to interfere in my behalf. And I was a young girl,

nineteen years old.

“How could my father do it? How could he bring himself to do this

thing? It is a long story.

“In the first place, Bernard Peixada was accounted a most estimable

member of society. He was rich; he was pious; he was eminently

respectable. His ill-looks were ignored. Was he to blame for them?

people asked. Did he not close his shop regularly on every holiday? Who

was more precise than he in observing the feasts and fasts of the Hebrew

calendar? or in attending services at the Synagogue? Was smoke ever to

be seen issuing from his chimneys on the Sabbath? Old as he was, did he

not abstain from food on the fast of Gedalia, and on that of Tebeth, and

on that of Tamuz, as well as on the Ninth of Ab and on Yom Kippur? Had

he not, year after year, been elected and re-elected Parnass of the

congregation? All honor to him, then, for a wise man and an upright

man in the way of the law! It was thus that public opinion in our small

world treated Bernard Peixada. On the theory that handsome is that

handsome does, he got the credit of being quite a paragon of beauty.

To be sure, he lacked social qualities—he was scarcely a

hail-fellow-well-met. He cared little for wine and tobacco—he abhorred

dominoes—he could not be induced to sit down to a game of penacle; but

all the better! The absence of these frivolous interests proved him to

be a man of responsible weight and gravity. It was a pity he had never

married. Perhaps it was not yet too late. Lucky the girl upon whom his

eye should turn with favor. If he had not youth and bodily grace to

offer her, he had, at least, wealth, wisdom, and respectability.

“Bernard Peixada had been the black beast of my childhood. When

I would go with my mother to the Synagogue, and sit with her in the

women’s gallery, I could not keep my eyes off Bernard.. Peixada, who

occupied the president’s chair downstairs. The sight of him had an

uncanny fascination for me. As I grew older, it was still the same.

Bernard Peixada personified to me all that was evil in human nature.

He was the Ahriman, the Antichrist, of my theology. He made my flesh

creep—gave me a sensation similar to that which a snake gives

one—only incomparably more intense.

“Well, one evening in the early spring of 1878, I was seated in our

little parlor over the shop, striving to entertain a very dull young

man—a Mr. Rimo, Bernard Peixada’s nephew—when the door opened,

and who should come gliding in but Bernard Peixada himself? I had never

before seen him at such close quarters, unless my father or mother or

Mr. Nathan was present too; and then I had derived a sense of security

from realizing that I had a friend near by. But now, here he was in the

very room with me, and I all alone, except for this nephew of his, Mr.

Rimo. I had to catch for my breath, and my heart grew faint within me.

“Bernard Peixada simply said good evening and sat down. I do not

remember that he spoke another word until he rose to go away. But for

two hours he sat there opposite me, and not for one instant did he take

his eyes from off my face. He sat still, like a toad, and leered at me.

His blue lips were curled into a grin, which, no doubt, was intended

to be reassuring, but which, in fact, sent cold shivers chasing down my

back. He stared at me as he might have stared at some inanimate object

that had been offered to him in pawn. Then at last, when he must have

learned every line and angle of my face by rote, he got up and went

away, leading Mr. Rimo after him.

“I lay awake all that night, wondering what Bernard Peixada’s visit

meant, hoping that it meant nothing, fearing—but it would take

too long for me to tell you all I feared. Suffice it that the next

afternoon—I was seated in my bed-room, trying to divert my imagination

with a tale of Hawthorne’s—the next afternoon my father called me

into his office behind the shop, and there in the presence of my mother

he corroborated the worst fears that had beset me during the night.

“‘Judith,’ he said, ’our neighbor, Mr. Peixada, has done us

the honor of proposing for your hand. Of course we have accepted. He

designates the eighth of August for the wedding-day. That will give you

plenty of time to get ready in; and on Sundays you will stay at home to

receive congratulations.

“It took a little while, Mr. Hetzel, for the full meaning of

my father’s speech to penetrate my mind. At first I did not

comprehend—I was stupefied, bewildered. My senses were benumbed.

Mechanically, I watched my father’s canary-bird hop from perch to

perch in his cage, and listened to the shrill whistle that he uttered

from time to time. I was conscious of a dizziness in my head, of a

sickness and a chill over all my body. But then, suddenly, the horror

shot through me—pierced my consciousness like a knife. Suddenly my

senses became wonderfully clear. I saw the black misery that they had

prepared for me, in a quick, vivid tableau before my eyes. I trembled

from head to foot. I tried to speak, to cry out, to protest. If I could

only have let the pain break forth in an inarticulate moan, it would

have been some relief. But my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth.

I could not utter a sound. ’Well, Judith,’ said my father, ’why

don’t you speak?’

“His words helped me to find my voice.

“‘Speak!’ I cried. ’What is there to say? Marry Bernard Peixada?

Marry that monster? I will never marry him. I would a thousand times

rather die.’

“My mother and father looked at me and at each other in dismay.

“‘Judith,’ said my father, sternly, ’that is not the language

that a daughter should use toward her parents. That is not the way a

young lady should feel, either. Of course you will marry Mr. Peixada.

Don’t make a scene about it. It has all been arranged between us; and

your betrothed is coming to claim you in half an hour.’

“‘Father,’ I answered, very calmly, ’I am sorry to rebel against

your authority, but I tell you now, once for all, I will not marry

Bernard Peixada.’ ’Judith,’ rejoined my father, imitating my

manner, ’I am sorry to contradict you, but I tell you now, once for

all, you will.’

“‘Never,’ said I.

“‘On the eighth of August,’ said my father.

“‘Time will show,’ said I.

“‘Time will show,’ said he, ’in less than fifteen minutes.

Judith, listen.’

“It was an old story that my father now proceeded to tell me—old,

and yet as new as it is terrible to the girl who has to listen to it.

It does not break the heart in two, like the old, old story of Heine’s

song: it inflames the heart with a dull, sullen anguish that is the

worst pain a woman can be called upon to endure. My father told me how

for two years past his pecuniary affairs had been going to the dogs;

how he had been getting poor and poorer; how he had become Bernard

Peixada’s debtor for sums of money that he could never hope to pay;

how Bernard Peixada owned not only the wares in our shop, but the very

chairs we sat on, the very beds we slept in, the very plates off which

we ate; how, indeed, it was Bernard Peixada who paid for the daily bread

that kept our bodies and souls together. My father explained all this to

me, concluding thus: ’I was in despair, Judith. I thought I should go

crazy. I saw nothing but disgrace and the poor-house before your mother

and you and me. I could not sleep at night. I could not work during the

day. I could do nothing but think, think, think of the desperate pass to

which my affairs had come. It was an agony, Judith. It would soon have

killed me, or driven me mad. Then, all at once, the darkness of my—sky

is lightened by this good man, whom I have already to thank for so much.

He calls upon me. He says he will show me a way out of my difficulties.

“I ask what it is. He answers, why not unite our families, accept him

as my son-in-law? and adds that between son-in-law and father-in-law

there can be no question of indebtedness. In other words, he told me

that he loved you, Judith; that he wished to marry you; and that, once

married to you, he would consider my debts to him discharged. Try,

Judith, to realize his generosity. I—I owe him thousands. But for

him we should have starved. But for him, we should starve to-morrow.

Ordinary gratitude alone would have been enough to compel me to say yes

to his proposition. But by saying yes, did I not also accomplish our own

salvation? Now that you have heard the whole story, Judith, now, like a

good girl, promise to make no opposition.’

“‘So that,’ I retorted, indignantly, ’I am to be your ransom—I

am to be sacrificed as a hostage. The pawnbroker consents to receive

me as an equivalent for the money you owe him. A woman to be literally

bought and sold. Oh, father, no, no! There must be some other way. Let

me go to work. Have I not already earned money by giving lessons? I will

teach from morning to night each day; and every penny that I gain, I

will give to you to pay Bernard Peixada with. I will be so industrious!

I would rather slave the flesh from my bones—any thing, rather than

marry him.’

“‘The most you could earn,’ my father answered, ’would be no

more than a drop in the bucket, Judith.’

“‘Well, then,’ I went on, ’there is Mr. Nathan. He has money.

Borrow from him. He will not refuse. I know that he would gladly give

much money to save me from a marriage with Bernard Peixada. I will ask

him.’

“Judith, you must not speak of this to Mr. Nathan,’ cried my father,

hastily. ’He must not know but that your marriage to Mr. Peixada is

an act of your own choice. I—to tell you the truth—I have already

borrowed from Mr. Nathan as much as I dare to ask for.’

“To cut a long story short, Mr. Hetzel, my father drew for me such

a dark picture of his misfortunes, he argued so plausibly that all

depended upon my marrying Bernard Peixada, he pleaded so piteously, that

in the end I said, ’Well, father, I will do as you wish.’——

“I do not think it is necessary to dwell upon what followed: how my

father and mother embraced me, and wept over me, and thanked me, and

gave me their benediction; how Bernard Peixada came from his lair

across the street, and kissed my hand, and leered at me, and called me

’Judith’ in that voice of his; how then, for weeks afterward, my

life was one protracted, hopeless horror; how the sun rose morning after

morning, and brought neither warmth nor light, but only a reminder that

the eighth of August was one day nearer still; how I could speak of

it to no one, but had to bear it all alone in silence; how at night

my sleep was constantly beset by nightmares, in which I got a bitter

foretaste of the future; how evening after evening I had to spend in

the parlor with Bernard Peixada, listening to his voice, watching his

fingers writhe, feeling the deadly light of his eyes upon me, breathing

the air that his presence tainted; how every Sunday I had to receive

people’s congratulations! the good wishes of all our family

friends—I need not dwell upon these things. My life was a long

heart-ache. I had but one relief—hoping that I might die. I did not

think of putting an end to myself; but I did pray that God, in his

mercy, would let me die before the eighth of August came. Indeed, my

health was very much broken. Our family doctor visited me twice a week.

He told my father that marriage would be bad for me. But my father’s

hands were tied.

“The people here tell me that there is a man confined in this prison

under sentence to be hanged. The day fixed for his execution is the

first Friday of next month. Well, I think that that man, now, as he

looks forward to the first Friday of September, may feel a little as I

felt then, when I would look forward to the eighth of August—only he

has the mitigation of knowing that afterward he will be dead, whereas I

knew that I should have to live and suffer worse things still. As I

saw that day steadily creeping nearer and nearer to me, the horror that

bound my heart intensified. It was like the old Roman spectacle. I had

been flung ad bestias. I stood still, defenseless, beyond the reach of

rescue, hopeless of escape, and watched the wild beast draw closer and

closer to me, and all the while endured the agony of picturing to myself

the final moment, when he would spring upon me and suck my blood: only,

again there was this difference—the martyr in the arena knew that

after that final moment, all would be over; but I knew that the worst

would then just be begun. Yet, at last—toward the end—I actually

fell to wishing that the final moment would arrive. The torture, long

drawn out, of anticipation was so unbearable that I actually wished the

wild beast would fall upon me, in order that I might enjoy the relief

of change. Nothing, I felt, could be more painful than this waiting,

dreading, imagining. The eighth of August could bring no terror that I

had not already confronted in imagination.

“Well, this one wish of mine was granted. The eighth of August came. I

was married to Bernard Peixada. I stood up in our parlor, decked out in

bridal costume, holding Bernard Peixada’s hand in mine, and took the

vows of matrimony in the presence of a hundred witnesses. The canopy was

raised over our heads; the wine was drunken and spilled; the glass was

broken. The chazzan sang his song; the rabbi said his say; and I,

who had gone through the performance in a sort of stupor—dull, half

conscious, bewildered—I was suddenly brought to my senses by a clamor

of cheerful voices, as the wedding-guests trooped up around us, to

felicitate the bridegroom and to kiss the bride. I realized—no, I

did not yet realize—but I understood that I was Bernard Peixada’s

wife—his wife, for good and all, for better or for worse! I don’t

remember that I suffered any new pain. The intense suffering of the last

few months had worn out my capacities for suffering. My brain was dazed,

my heart deadened.

“The people came and came, and talked and talked—I remember it as I

remember the delirium I had when I was sick once with fever. And after

the last person had come and talked and gone away, Bernard Peixada

offered me his arm, and said, ’We must take our places at the wedding

feast.’ Then he led me up-stairs, where long tables were laid out for

supper.

“A strange sense of unreality possessed me. In a vague, dreamy,

far-off way, I saw the guests stand up around the tables; saw the men

cover their heads with hats or handkerchiefs; heard the voice of Mr.

Nathan raised in prayer; heard the company join lustily in his ’Baruch

Adonai,’. and reverently in his final ’Amen’ saw the head-gear

doffed, the people sink into their seats; heard the clatter of knives

and forks mingle with the tinkling of glasses, the bubble of pouring

wine, the uproar of talk and laughter; was conscious of glaring lights,

of moving forms, of the savor of food, mixed with the perfume of flowers

and the odor of cologne on the women’s handkerchiefs: felt hot,

dazzled, suffocated, confused—an oppression upon my breast, a ringing

in my ears, a swimming in my head: the world was whirling around and

around—I alone, in the center of things, was motionless.

“So on for I knew not how long. In the end I became aware that

speeches were being made. The wedding feast, that meant, was nearly

over. I did not listen to the speeches. But they reminded me of

something that I had forgotten. Now, indeed, my heart stood still. They

reminded me that the moment was not far off when Bernard Peixada, when

my husband, would lead me away with him!

“The speeches were wound up. Mr. Nathan began his last grace. My

mother signaled me to be ready to come to her as soon as Mr. Nathan

should get through.

“‘Judith,’ she said, when I had reached her side, ’we had better

go up-stairs now, and change your dress.’

“We went up-stairs. When we came down again, we found Bernard Peixada

waiting in the hall. Through the open door of the parlor, I could hear

music, and see young men and women dancing. Oh, how I envied them! My

mother and father kissed me. Bernard Peixada grasped my arm. We left my

father’s house. We crossed the street. Bernard Peixada kept hold of my

arm, as if afraid that I might make a dash for liberty—as, indeed, my

impulse urged me to do. With his unoccupied hand, Bernard Peixada drew

a key from his pocket, and opened the side door of his own dark

abode—the door that bore the brass plate with the Old English letters.

“‘Well,’ he said, ’come in.’

“With a shudder, I crossed the threshold of that mysterious, sinister

house—of that house which had been the terror of my childhood, and was

to be—what? In the midst of my fear and my bewilderment, I could not

suppress a certain eagerness to confront my fate and know the worst at

once—a certain curiosity to learn the full ghastliness of my doom. In

less time than I had bargained for, I had my wish.”

Thus far Hetzel had read consecutively. At this point he was interrupted

by the entrance of Mrs. Hart.

“Are you busy?” she asked. “Because, if you’re not, I think you

had better go up-stairs and sit with Arthur. The nurse wants to eat

her breakfast and lie down for a while. And I, you know, am expected by

Ruth.”

“Oh, to be sure,” Hetzel replied, with a somewhat abstracted manner.

“Oh, yes—I’ll do as you wish at once. But it is a pity that you

should have to go down-town alone—especially in this weather.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that. Good-by.”

Hetzel gained the sick-room. The nurse said, “You won’t have much to

do, except sit down and keep quiet.”

Arthur lay motionless, for all the world as if asleep, save that his

eyes were open. The room was darkened. Hetzel sat down near to the

window, and returning to Ruth’s letter, read on by the light that

stole in through the chinks in the blinds. The wind and rain played a

dreary accompaniment.

“To detain you, Mr. Hetzel, with an account of my married life would

be superfluous. It was as bad as I had expected it to be, and worse. It

bore that relation to my anticipations which pain realized must always

bear to pain conjectured. The imagination, in anticipating pleasure,

generally goes beyond the reality and paints a too highly colored

picture. But in anticipating suffering, it does not go half far

enough. It is not powerful enough to foretell suffering in its complete

intensity.

“Sweet is never so sweet as we imagine it will be; bitter is always at

least a shade bitterer than we are prepared for. Imagination slurs over

the little things—and the little things, trifles in themselves, are

the things that add to the poignancy of suffering. Bernard Peixada had

a copy of Dante’s Inferno, illustrated by Doré, on his sitting-room

table. You may guess what my life was like, when I tell you that I used

to turn the pages of that book, and literally envy the poor wretches

portrayed there their fire and brimstone. The utmost refinement of

torture that Dante and Doré between them could conceive and describe,

seemed like child’s play when I contrasted it to what I had to put up

with everyday. Bernard Peixada was cruel and coarse and false. It did

not take him a great while to fathom the disgust that he inspired

me with; and then he undertook to avenge his wounded self-love. He

contrived mortifications and humiliations for me that I can not bring

myself to name, that you would have difficulty in crediting. Besides,

this period of my life is not essential to what I have set myself

to make plain to you. It was simply a period of mental and moral

wretchedness, and of bodily decline. My health, which, I think I have

said, had been failing before the eighth of August, now proceeded

steadily from bad to worse. It was aggravated by the daily trials I had

to endure. Of course I strove to bear up as bravely as I could.

“I did not wish Bernard Peixada to have the satisfaction of seeing how

unhappy he had succeeded in making me. I did not wish my poor father

and mother to witness the misery I had taken upon myself in obedience

to their behests. I said, ’That which is done is done, and can not be

undone, therefore let it not appear what the ordeal costs you.’ And in

the main I think I was successful. Only occasionally, when I was alone,

I would give myself the luxury of crying. I had never realized what a

relief crying could be till now. But now well, when I would be seized by

a paroxysm of grief that I could not control, when amid tears and sobs

I would no doubt look most pitiable—it was then that I came nearest to

being happy. I remember, on one of these occasions—Bernard Peixada

had gone out somewhere—I was surprised by a sanctimonious old woman, a

friend of his, if friendship can subsist between such people, a certain

Mrs. Washington Shapiro. ’My dear,’ said she, ’what are you crying

for?’ I was in a desperate mood. I did not care what I said; nay, more

than this, I enjoyed a certain forlorn pleasure in speaking my true mind

’for once, especially to this friend of Bernard Peixada’s. ’Oh,’

I answered, ’I am crying because I wish Bernard Peixada was dead

and buried.’ I had to smile through my tears at the horror-stricken

countenance Mrs. Shapiro now put on. ’What! You wish Bernard Peixada

was dead?’ she exclaimed. ’Shame upon you! How can you say such a

thing!’—’He is a monster—he makes me unhappy,’ I responded.

’In that case,’ said Mrs. Shapiro, ’you ought to wish that you

yourself were dead, not he. It is you who are monstrous, for thinking

and saying such wicked things of that good man.’—’Oh,’ I

rejoined, ’I am young. I have much to live for. He is an old, bad man.

If he should die, it would be better for every body.’—This was, as

nearly as I can remember, a month or two before the night of July 30th.

As I have told you, it was a piece of self-indulgence.

“I enjoyed speaking my true sentiments; I enjoyed horrifying Mrs.

Shapiro. But I was duly punished. She took pains to repeat what I had

said to Bernard Peixada. He did not fail to administer an adequate

punishment. Afterward, when I was tried for murder, Mrs. Shapiro turned

up, and retailed our conversation to the jury, for the purpose of

establishing my evil disposition.

“It was in the autumn after my marriage that my father was stricken

with paralysis, and died. It was better for him. If he had lived, he

could not have: remained ignorant of his daughter’s misery; and then

he would have had to suffer the pangs of futile self reproach. Of course

he left nothing for my mother. The creditors took possession of every

thing. Bernard Peixada had been false to his bargain. Instead of

canceling my father’s indebtedness to him, as he had promised, he had

simply j sold his claims. Immediately after my father’s death, the

creditors swooped down upon his house and shop, and sold the last stick

of: furniture over my mother’s head. Mr. Nathan generously bought in

the things that were most precious as keep-sakes and family relics, and

returned them to my mother, after the vultures had flown away. Oddly

enough, they did not appear to blame Bernard Preixada—did not hold him

accountable.

“They continued to regard him as a paragon of manly virtue. Perhaps he

contrived some untruthful explanation, by which they were deceived I had

naturally hoped that now my mother would come to live with us. It would

have been a great comfort to me, if she had done so. But Bernard Peixada

wished otherwise. He cunningly persuaded her that she and I had best

dwell apart. So he supplied her with enough money to pay her expenses

and sent her to board in the family of a friend of his.

“Well, somehow, that fall and winter dragged away. It is something

terrible for me to look back at—that blackest, bleakest winter of my

life. I not understand how I managed to live through it without going

mad. I was a prisoner in Bernard Peixada’s house. My mother and Mr.

Nathan came to see me quite frequently; but Bernard was present during

their visits and therefore I got but little solace from them.

“The only persons except my mother and Mr. Nathan whom Bernard Peixada

permitted me to receive, were his own friends. And they were one and all

hateful to me. To my friends he denied admittance, I was physically very

weak. My ill health made it impossible for me to forget myself in my

books. The effort of reading was too exhausting. I could not sit for

more than a quarter of an hour at the piano? either, without all but

fainting away. (Mr. Nathan had given me a piano for a wedding-present.)

At the time I am referring to—when I was unable to play upon

it—Bernard Peixada allowed me the free use of it. But afterward—when

I had become stronger, and began to practice regularly—one day I found

it locked. Bernard Peixada stood near by, and watched me try to open it.

I looked at him, when I saw that I could not open it, and he looked at

me. Oh, the contortion of his features, the twisting of his thin blue

lips, the glitter of his venomous little eyes, the loathsome gurgle in

his throat, as he laughed! He laughed at my dismay. Laughter? At least,

I know no other word by which to name the hideous spasm that convulsed

his voice. The result was, I passed my days moping. He objected to my

leaving the house, except in his company. I had therefore to remain

within doors. I used to sit at the window, and watch the life below

in the street, and look across at our house—now occupied by

strangers—and live over the past—my childhood, my girlhood—always

stopping at the day and the hour when my father had called me from the

reading of that story of Hawthorne’s, to announce my doom to me. But

I am wasting your time. All this is aside from the point. I did survive

that winter. And when the spring came, I began to get better in health,

and to become consequently more hopeful in spirit. I said, Why, you are

not yet twenty-one years old. He is sixty—and feeble at that. Only

try hard to hold out a little longer—a few years at the most—and he

must, in the mere course of nature, die. Then you will not yet be an

old woman. Life will still be worth something to you. You will have your

music, and you will be rid of him.’ Wicked? Unwomanly? Perhaps so;

but I think it was the way every girl in my position would have

felt. However, the consolation that came from thoughts like this, was

short-lived. The next moment it would occur to me, ’He may quite

possibly live to be ninety!’ And my heart would sink at the prospect

of thirty years—thirty years—more of life as his wife.

“In March, 1879, Bernard Peixada spoke to me as follows: ’Judith,

you are not going to be a pawnbroker’s wife much longer. I have, made

arrangements to sell my business. I have leased a house up-town. We

shall move on the 1st of May. After that we shall be a gentleman and

lady of leisure.’

“Surely enough, on the 1st of May we moved. The house he had leased

was a frame house, standing all alone in the middle of the block,

between Eighty-fifth and Eighty-sixth Streets and Ninth and Tenth

Avenues. It was a large, substantial, comfortable house, dating from

Knickerbocker times. He had caused it to be furnished in a style which

he meant to be luxurious, but which was, in truth, the extreme of

ugliness. The grounds around it were laid out in a garden. We went to

live there punctually on the 1st of May.

“Bernard Peixada now began to spend money with a lavish hand. He

bought fine clothes and jewels, in which he required me to array myself.

He even went to the length of purchasing a carriage and a pair of

horses. Then he would make me go driving at his side through Central

Park. He kept a coachman. The coachman was Edward Bolen. (Meanwhile, I

must not forget to tell you, Bernard Peixada had quarreled and broken

with my mother and Mr. Nathan. Now he allowed neither of them to enter

his house.) I was in absolute ignorance concerning them. Once I ventured

to ask him for news of them. He scowled. He said, ’You must never

mention them in my presence.’ And he accompanied this injunction with

such a look that I was careful to observe it scrupulously thereafter. I

received no letters from them. You may imagine what an addition all this

was to my burden.

“But it is of Edward Bolen that I must tell you at present. He was a

repulsive looking Irishman. It is needless that I should describe him.

Suffice it that at first I was unsuspicious enough to accept him for

what he ostensibly was—Bernard Peixada’s coachman—but that ere

a great while I discovered, that he was something else, besides. I

discovered that he and Bernard Peixada had secrets together.

“At night, after the household had gone to bed, he and Bernard Peixada

would meet in the parlor, and hold long conversations in low tones.

What they talked about, I did not know. But this I did know—it was not

about the horses. I concluded that they were mutually interested in

some bad business—that they were hatching some villainous plots

together—but, I confess, I did not much care what the business was, or

what the plots were. Only, the fact that they were upon this footing of

confidence with each other, struck me, and abode in my memory.

“One afternoon, about a fortnight before the thirtieth of July,

Bernard Peixada had taken me to drive in Central Park. As I was getting

out of the carriage, upon our return, I tripped somehow, and fell,

and sprained my ankle. This sent me to my room. Dr. Gunther, Bernard

Peixada’s physician, attended me. He said I should not be able to

walk, probably for a month.

“More than a week later, toward sunset, I was lying there on my bed.

Bernard Peixada had been absent from the house all day. Now I heard his

footfall below in the corridor—then on the stairs—then in the hall

outside my door. I took for granted that he was coming to speak with me.

I recoiled from the idea of speaking with him just then. So I closed my

eyes, and pretended to be asleep.

“He came in. He approached my bedside, kept my eyes shut tight.

’Judith,’ he said, did not answer—feigned not to hear.

’Judith,’ repeated. Again I did not answer. He placed his hand upon

my forehead. I tried not to shudder. I guess she’s sound asleep,’ he

said; ’that’s good.’ He moved off.

“His words, ’that’s good,’ Mr. Hetzel, frightened me. Why was

it ’good’ that I should be asleep? Did he intend to do me a mischief

while I slept? I opened my eyes the least bit. I saw him standing

sidewise to me, a yard or so away. He drew a number of papers from the

inside pocket of his coat. He ran them over. He laid one of them aside,

and replaced the others in his pocket. Then he went to the safe—he

kept a small safe in our bed-chamber—and opening the door—the door

remained unlocked all day; his habit being to lock it at night and

unlock it in the morning—he thrust the paper I have mentioned into one

of the pigeonholes, pushed the door to, and left the room. I had seen

him do all this through half closed eyes. Doubtless this was why it was

’good’ for me to be asleep—so that he could do what he had done,

unobserved.

“I suppose I was entirely reprehensible—that my conduct admitted of

no excuse. However that may be, the fact is that an impulse prompted me

to get up from my bed, and to possess myself of the paper that he had

put into the safe. I did not stop to question or to combat that

impulse. No sooner thought, than I jumped up—and cried out loud! I had

forgotten my sprained ankle! For an instant I stood still, faint with

pain, terrified lest he might have heard my scream—lest he might

return, find me on my feet, divine my intention, and punish me as he

knew so well how to do. But while I stood there, undetermined whether

to turn back or to pursue my original idea, the terror passed away.

I limped across the floor, pulled the safe door open, put in my hand,

grasped the paper, drew it out, swung the door back, regained my bed.

“There I had to lie still for a little, and recover my breath. I had

miscalculated my strength. The effort had exhausted me. My ankle was

aching cruelly—the pains shot far up into my body. But by and by I

felt better. I unfolded the paper, smoothed it out, glanced at it..

This was all I had earned by my exertions:—’R. 174.—L. 36s.—R.

222.—L. 30.’ This was all that was written upon the paper. And what

this meant, how could I tell? I made up my mind, after much puzzling,

that it must be a secret writing—a cipher of one sort or another. I

was not sorry that I had purloined it, though I was disappointed at its

contents. I felt sure that Bernard Peixada could scarcely mean to employ

it for good ends. So it was just as well that I should have taken it

from him. I was on the point of destroying it, when I decided not to.

’No, I had best not destroy it,’ I thought. ’It possibly may be of

value. I will hide it where he can not find it.’ I hid it beneath the

mattress on which I lay.

“How absurd and unreasonable my whole proceeding had been, had it not?

Much ado about nothing! With no adequate motive, and at the cost of much

suffering to myself, I had committed an unnecessary theft; and the

fruit of it was that incomprehensible row of figures. The whim of a sick

woman. And yet, though I recognized this aspect of the case with perfect

clearness, I could not find it in me to repent what I had done.

“That night Bernard Peixada and Edward Bolen talked together till past

midnight, in the parlor.

“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.

“I sat up in bed, and looked around. My night-lamp was burning on the

table. There was no second person in my room. The hands of the clock

marked twenty-five minutes before one.

“I listened. Stillness so deep that I could hear my heart beat.

“What could it be, then, that had awakened me so abruptly?

“I continued to listen. Hark! Did I not hear—yes, certainly, I

heard—the sound of voices—of men’s voices—in the room below.

Bernard Peix-ada and Edward Bolen were holding one of their midnight

sessions. That was all. .

“That was all: an every-night occurrence. And yet, for what reason

I can not tell, on this particular night that familiar occurrence

portended much to me. Ordinarily, I should have lain abed, and left them

to talk till their tongues were tired. On this particular night—why,

I did not stop to ask myself—swayed by an impulse which I did not stop

to analyze—I got straightway out of bed, crept to the open window, and

standing there in the chilling atmosphere, played the eavesdropper

to the best of my powers. Was it woman’s curiosity? In that event,

woman’s curiosity serves a good end now and then.

“The room in which they were established, was, as I have said,

directly beneath my own. Their window was directly beneath my window.

Their window, like mine, was open. I heard each syllable that they spoke

as distinctly as I could have heard, if they had been only a yard away.

Each syllable stenographed itself upon my memory. I believe that I can

repeat their conversation word for word.

“Bernard Peixada was saying this: ’You know the number. Here is a

plan. The house is a narrow one—only twelve feet wide. There is no

vestibule. The street door opens directly into a small reception-room.

In the center of this reception-room stands a table. You want to look

out for that table, and not knock against it in the dark.’

“‘No fear of that,’ replied Edward Bolen.

“‘Now look said Bernard Peixada; ’here is the door that leads out

of the reception-room. It is a sliding door, always kept open. Over

it hangs a curtain, which you want to lift up from the bottom: don’t

shove it aside: the rings would rattle on the rod. Beyond this door

there is a short passage-way see here. And right here, where my pencil

points, the stairs commence. You go up one flight, and reach the

parlors. There are three parlors in a line. From the middle parlor a

second staircase mounts to the sleeping rooms. Now, be sure to remember

this: the third step—I mark it with a cross the third step creaks.

Understand? It creaks. So, in climbing this second flight of stairs, you

want to skip the third step.’

“‘Sure,’ was Edward Bolen’s rejoinder.

“‘Well and good. Now you have finished with the second flight of

stairs. At the head you find yourself in a short, narrow hall. Three

doors open from this hall. The front door opens into the spare bed-room,

now unoccupied. The middle door opens into the bath-room. The last door

opens into the room you want to get at. Which of these doors are you to

pass through?’

“‘The bath-room door.’

“‘Precisely. That is the door which your key fits—not the door

that leads straight into his room. Well, now observe. Here is the

bath-room. You unlock the door from the hall into the bath-room,

and—what next?’

“‘I lock it again, behind me.’

“‘Very well. And then?’

“‘Then I open the door from the bath-room into the room I’m after.

That’ll be unlocked.’

“‘Excellent! That will be unlocked. He never locks it. So, finally

you are in the room you have been making for. Now, study this room

carefully. You see, the bed stands here; the bureau, here; a sofa, here;

the safe, here. There are several chairs. You want to look sharp for

them.”

“‘I’ll be sure to do that.’

“‘All right. But the first thing will be to look after him. He’ll

probably wake up the instant you open the door from the bath-room.

He’s like a weasel, for light sleeping. You can’t breathe, but

he’ll wake up. He’ll wake up, and most likely call out, “Who’s

there? Is any one there?” or something of that sort. Don’t you

answer. Don’t you use any threats. You can’t scare him. Give him

time, and he’ll make an outcry. Give him a chance, and he’ll fight.

So, you don’t want to give him either time or chance. The first thing

you do, you march straight up to the bed, and catch him by the throat;

hold him down on the pillow, and clap the sponge over his face. Press

the sponge hard. One breath will finish his voice. Another breath will

finish him. Then you’ll have things all your own way.—Well, do you

know what next?’

“‘Next, I’m to fasten the sponge tight where it belongs, and pour

on more of the stuff.’

“‘Just so. And next?’

“‘I’m to light the gas.’

“‘Right again. And next?’

“‘Well, I suppose the job comes next—hey?’

“‘Exactly. You have learned your lesson better than I’d have given

you credit for doing. The job comes next. Now you’ve got the gas lit,

and him quiet, it’ll be plain sailing. The safe stands here. It’s

a small affair, three, by three, by two and a half. I’ll give you the

combination by and by. I’ve got it up stairs. But first, look here.

Here’s a plan of the inside of the safe. Here’s an inside

closet, closed by an iron door. No matter about that. Here s a row

of pigeon-holes, just above it seven of them—see? Now, the fifth

pigeon-hole from the right-hand side—the third from the left—the one

marked here with red ink—that’s the one that you’re interested in.

All you’ll have to do will be to stick in your hand and take out every

thing that pigeonhole contains—every thing, understand? Don’t you

stop to examine them. Just lay hold of every thing and come away. What

I want will be in that pigeon-hole; and if you take every thing you

can’t miss it. Then, as I say, all you’ll have left to do will be to

get out of the house and make tracks for home.’

“‘And how about him? Shall I loosen the sponge?’

“‘No, no. Don’t stop to do that. He’ll come around all right in

time; or, if he shouldn’t, why, small loss!’

“‘Well, I reckon I understand the job pretty thoroughly now. I

suppose I’d better be starting.’

“‘Yes. Now wait here a moment. I’ll go upstairs and get you the

combination.’

“As rapidly as, with my sprained ankle, I could, I returned to my

bed. I had scarcely touched my head to the pillow, when Bernard Peixada

crossed the threshold. I lay still, feigning sleep. You may imagine

the pitch of excitement to which the conversation I had intercepted

had worked me up. But as yet I had not had time to think it over and

determine how to act. Crime, theft, perhaps murder even, was brewing. I

had been forewarned. What could I do to prevent it? Unless I should

do something, I should be almost an accomplice—almost as bad as the

conspirators themselves.

“Bernard Peixada went at once to the safe, and swung open the heavy

door. I lay with my back toward him, and was unable, therefore, to watch

his movements. But I could hear his hands busy with rustling papers. And

then, all at once, I heard his voice, loud and hoarse, sounding like the

infuriated shriek of a madman, ’I have been robbed—robbed!’

“Like a lightning flash, it broke upon me. I knew what the paper I

had stolen was. I knew what the mysterious figures it bore meant. I

had stolen the combination that Bernard Peixada had come in quest of!

Without that combination their scheme of midnight crime could not be

carried through! It was indispensable to their success. And I had stolen

it! I thanked God for the impulse that had prompted me to do so. Then

I lay still and waited. My heart was throbbing so violently, I was

actually afraid that Bernard Peixada might hear it. I lay still and

waited and prayed as I had never prayed before. I prayed for strength to

win in the battle which, I knew, would now j shortly have to be fought.

“Bernard Peixada cried out, ’I have been robbed—robbed!’ Then

for a few seconds he was silent. Then he ran to the entrance of the room

and shouted, ’Bolen, Bolen, come here.’ And when Edward Bolen had

obeyed, Bernard Peixada led him to the safe and said—ah, how his harsh

voice shook!—said, ’Look! I have been robbed. The combination is

gone. I put it in there with my own hands. It is there no longer. It

has been stolen. Who stole it? If you did, by God, I’ll have you

hanged!’

“I had slowly and noiselessly turned over in bed. Now, through half

closed eyes, I could watch the two men. Bernard Peixada’s body was

trembling from head to foot, as if palsy-stricken. His small, black

eyes were starting from their sockets. His yellow fangs shone hideously

behind his parted lips. His talons writhed, writhed, writhed. Edward

Bolen stood next his master, as stolid as an ox. Edward Bolen appeared

to be thinking. In a little while Edward Bolen shrugged his massive

shoulders, lifted his arm, pointed to my bed, and spoke one word,

’Her.’

“Bernard Peixada started. ’What—my wife?’ he gasped.

“‘Ask her,’ suggested Edward Bolen.

“Bernard Peixada seemed to hesitate. Finally, approaching my bedside,

’Judith,’ he called through chattering teeth..

“I did not answer—but it was not that I meant still to pretend

sleep. It was that my courage had deserted me. I had no voice. I

clenched my fists and made my utmost effort to command myself.

“‘Judith,’ Bernard Peixada called a second time.

“‘Yes,’ I gathered strength to respond.

“‘Judith,’ Bernard Peixada went on, still all a-tremble, ’have

you—have you taken any papers out of my safe?’

“What use could lying serve at this crisis? There was sufficient evil

in action now, without my adding answered, ’Yes—I have taken the

paper you are looking for.’

“Bernard Peixada had manifestly not expected such an answer. It

took him aback. He stood, silent and motionless, glaring at me in

astonishment. His mouth gaped open, and the lamplight played with his

teeth.

“Edward Bolen muttered, ’Eh! what did I tell you?’

“But Bernard Peixada stood motionless and silent only for a

breathing-space. Suddenly flames leaped to his eyes, color to his

cheek. I shall not an ineffectual lie to it. I drew a long breath, and

transcribe the volley of epithets that I had now to sustain from his

foul mouth. His frame was rigid with wrath. His voice mounted from

shrill to shriller. He spent himself in a tirade of words. Then he sank

into a chair, unable to keep his feet from sheer exhaustion. The veins

across his forehead stood out like great, bloated leeches. His long,

black finger-nails kept tearing the air.

“Edward Bolen waited.

“So did I.

“But eventually Bernard Peixada recovered his forces. Springing to

his feet, looking hard at me, and pronouncing each word with an evident

attempt to control his fury, he said, ’We have no time to waste upon

you just now, madam. Bolen, here, has business to transact which he must

needs be about. Afterward I shall endeavor to have an understanding with

you. At present we will dispose of the matter of prime importance. You

don’t deny that you have stolen a certain paper from my safe. I wish

you at once, without an instant’s delay or hesitation, to tell us what

you have done with that paper. Where have you put it?’

“I tried to be as calm as he was. ’I will not tell you,’ I

replied.

“A smile that was ominous contracted his lips.

“‘Oh, yes, you will,’ he said, mockingly, ’and the sooner you do

so, the better—for you.’

“‘I have said, I will not,’ I repeated.

“The same ominous, sarcastic smile: but suddenly it faded out, and

was replaced by an expression of alarm. ’You—you have not destroyed

it?’ he asked, abruptly.

“It seemed to me that he had suggested a means for terminating the

situation. This time, without a qualm, I lied. ’Yes, I have destroyed

it.’

“‘Good God!’ he cried, and stood still, aghast.

“Edward Bolen stepped forward. He tugged at Bernard Peixada’s elbow.

He pointed toward me. ’Don’t you see, she’s lying?’ he demanded

roughly. Bernard Peixada started. The baleful light of his black eyes

pierced to the very marrow of my consciousness. He searched me through

and through. ’Ah!’ he cried, with a great sigh of relief, ’to

be sure, she’s lying.’ His yellow teeth gnawed at his under lip: a

symptom of busy thinking. Finally he said, ’You have not destroyed it.

I advise you to tell us where it is. I advise you to lose no time. Where

is it?’

“‘I will not tell you,’ I answered.

“‘I give you one more chance,’ he said; ’where is it?’

“‘I’ll will not tell you.’

“‘Very well. Then we shall be constrained—’ He broke off, and

whispered a few sentences into Edward Bolen’s ear.

“Edward Bolen nodded, and left the room. Bernard Peixada glared at me.

I lay still, wondering what the next act was to be, fortifying myself to

endure and survive the worst.

“Bernard Peixada said, ’You are going to cause yourself needless

pain. You may as well speak now as afterward. You’ll be as docile as a

lamb, in a minute or two.’

“I held my tongue. Presently Edward Bolen returned. He handed

something to Bernard Peix-ada. Bernard Peixada turned to me. ’Which

one of your ankles,’ he inquired, ’is it that you are having trouble

with?’

“I did not speak.

“Bernard Peixada shrugged his shoulders. ’Oh, very well,’ he

sneered; ’it won’t take long to find out.’ With that, he seized

hold of the bed-clothes that covered me, and with a single motion of his

arm tossed them upon the floor.

“I started up—attempted to spring from off the bed. He placed his

hands upon my shoulders, and pushed me back, prostrate. I struggled

with him. He summoned Edward Bolen to re-enforce him. Edward Bolen was a

strong man. Edward Bolen had no difficulty in holding me down, flat upon

the mattress. I watched Bernard Peixada.

“Bernard Peixada took the thing that I had seen Edward Bolen give

him—it was a piece of thick twine, perhaps twelve inches in length,

and attached at each end to a transverse wooden handle—he took it, and

wound it about my ankle—the ankle that was sprained. Then, by means of

the two wooden handles, he began to twist it around and around—and at

every revolution, the twine cut deeper and deeper into my flesh—and at

last they pain became more horrible than I could bear—oh, such pain,

such fearful pain!—and I cried out for quarter.

“‘I will tell you any thing you wish to know,’ I said.

“‘As I anticipated,’ was Bernard Peixada’s comment. ’Well,

where shall we find the paper that you stole?’

“‘Loosen that cord, and I will tell you—I will give it to you,’

I said.

“‘No,’ he returned. ’Give it to me, or tell me where it is, and

then I will loosen the cord.’

“‘It is not here—it—it is down-stairs,’ I replied, inspired

by a sudden hope. If I could only get down-stairs, I thought, I might

contrive to reach the door that let out of the house. Then, lame

though I was, and weak and sick, I might, by a supreme effort, elude

my persecutors—attain the street—summon help—and thus, not only

escape myself, but defeat the criminal enterprise that they were bent

upon. It was a crazy notion. At another moment I should have scouted it.

But at that moment it struck me as wholly rational—as, at any rate,

well worth venturing. I did not give myself time to consider it very

carefully. It made haste from my mind to my lips. ’The paper,’ I

said, ’is down-stairs.’

“‘Down-stairs?’ queried Bernard Peixada, tightening the cord a

little; ’where down-stairs?’

“‘In—in the parlor—in the book-case—shut up in a book,’ I

answered.

“‘In what book?’

“‘I can not tell you. But I could put my hand upon it, if I

were there. After I took it from the safe—you were absent from the

house—I—oh, for mercy’s sake, don’t, don’t tighten that—I

crawled down-stairs—ah, that is better; loosen it a little——I

crawled down to the parlor—and—and shut it up in a book. I don’t

remember what book. But I could find it for you if I were there.’ In

the last quarter hour, Mr. Hetzel, I, who had recoiled from lying at the

outset, had become somewhat of an adept at that art, as you perceive.

“Bernard Peixada exchanged a glance with Edward Bolen; then said to

me, ’All right. Come down-stairs with us.’

“He removed the instrument of torture. A wave of pain more sickening

than any I had yet endured, swept through my body, as the ligature was

relaxed, and the blood flowed throbbing back into my disabled foot. I

got up and hobbled as best I could across the floor, out through

the hall, down the stairs. Edward Bolen preceded me. Bernard Peixada

followed.

“At the bottom of the stairs I had to halt and lean against the

bannister for support. I was weak and faint.

“‘Go light the gas in the parlor, Bolen,’ said Bernard Peixada.

“Bolen went off. Now, I thought, my opportunity had come. The

hall-door, the door that opened upon the grounds, was in a straight

line, not more than twenty feet distant from me. I looked at Bernard

Peixada. He was standing a yard or so to my right, in manifest

unconcern. I drew one deep breath, mustered my utmost courage, prayed

to God for strength, made a dash forward, reached the door, despite my

lameness, and had my hand upon the knob, before Bernard Peixada appeared

to realize what had occurred. But then—when he did realize—then in

two bounds he attained my side. The next thing I knew, he had grasped my

arm with one hand, and had twined the fingers of the other hand around

my throat. I could feel the sharp nails cutting into my flesh.

“‘Ah!’ he cried—a loud, piercing cry, half of surprise, half of

triumph. ’Ah!’ And then he swore a brutal oath.

“At his touch, Mr. Hetzel, I ceased to be a woman; I became a wild

beast. It was like a wild beast, that I now fought. Insensible to pain,

aware only of a fury that was no longer controllable in my breast, I

fought there with Bernard Peixada in battle royal. Needless to detail

our maneuvers. I fought with him to such good purpose that ere a great

while he had to plead for quarter, as I had had to plead up-stairs a few

moments ago. Quarter I gave him. I flung him away from me. He tottered

and fell upon the floor.

“Now I looked around. This was how things stood: Bernard Peixada

lay—half lay, half sat—upon the floor, preparing to get up. Edward

Bolen, his dull countenance a picture of amazement and stupefaction,

was advancing toward us from the lower end of the hall. And—and—on

a chair—directly in front of me—not two feet away—together with

a hat, a pair of overshoes, a bunch of keys, a lantern—I descried my

deliverance—a pistol!

“Quick as thought, I sprang forward. Next moment the pistol was mine.

Again I looked around. The situation was still much the same. Clasping

the butt of the pistol firmly in my hand, and gathering what assurance

I could from the feeling of it, I set out once more to open the door and

gain the outside of the house.

“I thought I was victress now—indisputably victress. But it

transpired that I had my claims yet to assert. I slid back the bolts of

the door, unhindered, it is true; but before I had managed to turn the

knob and pull the door open, Edward Bolen and Bernard Peixada sprang

upon me.

“There was a struggle. How long it lasted, I do not know. I heard the

pistol go off—a sharp, crashing, deafening report—once, twice: who

pulled the trigger, I scarcely knew. Who was wounded, I did not know.

All was confusion and pain and noise, blood and fire and smoke, horror

and sickness and bewilderment. I saw nothing—knew nothing—understood

nothing. I was beside myself. It was a delirium. I was

helpless—irresponsible.

“In the end, somehow, I got that door open. Through it all, that idea

had clung in my mind—to get the door open, somehow, at any cost. Well,

I got it open. I felt the fresh air upon my cheek, the perfume of the

garden in my nostrils. The breeze swept in, and cut a path through the

smoke, and made the gas jets flicker. Then I saw—I saw that I was

free. I saw that my persecutors were no longer to be feared. I saw

Edward Bolen and Bernard Peixada lying prone and bleeding upon the

marble pavement at my feet.

“I have explained to you, Mr. Hetzel, the circumstances of Bernard

Peixada’s death. It is not necessary for me to dwell upon its

consequences. At least, I need merely outline them. I need merely

tell you that in due order I was taken prisoner, tried for Bernard

Peixada’s murder, and acquitted.

“I was taken prisoner that very night. Next morning they brought me

here—to the same prison that I am again confined in now. Here I was

visited by Mr. Nathan. I had sent for him, addressing him in care of the

sexton of our synagogue; and he came.

“I told him what I have told you. He said I must have a lawyer—that

he would engage a lawyer for me. He engaged two lawyers—Mr. Short and

Mr. Sondheim. I repeated my story to them. They listened. When I had

done, they laughed. I asked them why they laughed. They replied that,

though my story was unquestionably true, no jury would believe it. They

said the lawyer for the prosecution would mix me upon cross-examination,

and turn my defense to ridicule. They said I should have to plead

lunacy. I need not detain you with a rehearsal of the dispute I had with

Messrs. Short and Sondheim. Eventually—in deference chiefly to the

urging of Mr. Nathan—I consented to let them take their own course. So

I was led to court, and tried, and acquitted. It would be useless for me

to go over my trial again now in this letter. I shall say enough when I

say that it was conducted in the same room that I had to plead in this

morning—that the room was crowded—that I had to sit there all day

long, for two mortal days, and listen to the lawyers, and the witnesses,

and the judge, and support the gaze of a multitude of people. If it had

not been for Mr. Nathan, I don’t know how I should have lived through

the ordeal. But he sat by me from beginning to end, and held my hand,

and inspired me with strength and hope. My mother, meantime, I had not

seen. Mr. Nathan said she was away from the city, visiting with friends,

whom he named; and added that it would be kinder not to let her know

what was going on. After my release, Mr. Nathan confessed that, thinking

I had already enough to bear, he had deceived me. My mother had been

sick; while my trial was in progress, she had died. Well, at last the

trial was over, and the jury had declared me not guilty, and the prison

people let me go. Mr. Nathan and I went together to an apartment he had

rented in Sixty-third Street. Thither came Messrs. Short and Sondheim,

and made me sign numberless papers—the nature of which I did not

inquire into—and after a while I understood that I had inherited a

great deal of money from Bernard Peixada—more than a hundred thousand

dollars. This money I asked Mr. Nathan to dispose of, so that it might

do some good. He invested it, and made arrangements to have the income

divided between a hospital, an orphan asylum, a home for working women,

an industrial school, and a society for the protection of children who

are treated cruelly by their parents. (I have just now received a paper

with a red seal on it, from which I learn that Bernard Peixada left a

will, and that the money I have spoken of will have to be paid over to

his brother.)

“That winter—the winter of 1879-80—Mr. Nathan and I spent alone

together. For the first time since the day on which my father had told

me I must marry Bernard Peixada, for the first time, I began to have a

feeling of peace, and repose, and security. Mr. Nathan was so good to

me—oh, such a good, kind, tender friend, Mr. Hetzel—that I became

almost happy. It was almost a happiness just to spend my time near to

Mr. Nathan—he was so gentle, so strong; he made me feel so safe,

so far away from the storm and the darkness of the past. Was I not

tormented by remorse? Did I not repent having taken two human lives? Not

for one instant. I held myself wholly irresponsible. If Bernard Peixada

and Edward Bolen had died by my hand, it was their own fault, their own

doing. No, I did not suffer the faintest pang of remorse. Only, now and

then I would remember—now and then the night of July 30th would re

enact itself in my memory—and then I would shudder and grow sick at

heart; but that was not remorse. It was disgust and horror. Of course

I do not mean that I was happy in a positive sense, this winter. Real

happiness I never knew until I met Arthur. But I was less unhappy than I

had been for a long, long while.

“But in the early spring Mr. Nathan died. The last person I had left

to care for, the last person who cared for me, the man who had stood as

a rock of strength for me to lean upon, to whom I had perhaps been too

much of a burden, but whom I had loved as a woman in my relation to him

must needs have loved him—this man died. I was absolutely alone in the

world. That was a dreary, desolate spring.

“Soon after his death, I received a paper something like this paper

with the red seal that I have received to-day. I found that he had made

a will and left me all his money. My doctor said I needed a change. I

went to Europe. I traveled alone in Europe for some months, trying to

forget myself in sight-seeing—in constant motion. At last I settled

down in Vienna, and devoted myself to studying music. I staid about a

year in Vienna. Then a spirit of restlessness seized upon me. I left

Vienna and went to London.

“In London I met Mrs. Hart. We became friends at once. She was about

to make a short trip on the Continent, before returning to America. She

asked me to accompany her. I said I would go to the Continent with

her, but that I could not return to America. She wanted to know why. I

answered by telling her a little something of my recent history. I said,

’In America I am Judith Peixada—the notorious woman who killed her

husband. Here I am unknown. So I will remain here.’ She asked, ’How

old are you?’ I said, ’Twenty-three, nearing twenty-four.’ She

said, ’You are a child. You have a long life before you. You are

wasting it, moping about in this aimless way here in Europe. Come home

with me. Nobody shall recognize you for Judith Peixada. I will give you

a new name. You shall be Ruth Lehmyl. Ruth Lehmyl was the name of my

daughter who is dead. You may guess how dearly I love you, when I ask

you to take my daughter’s name. Come home and live with me, Ruth, and

make me happy.’—As you know, I was prevailed upon. After a month

or two spent at Aix-les-Bains, we came back to America. We dwelt for a

while in an apartment on Fifty-ninth Street. Last April we moved into

Beekman Place.

“This brings me to the second point. Why, with that dark stain upon my

past—why, being Judith Peixada, for all my change of name—why did I

consent to become Arthur Ripley’s wife? Oh, Mr. Hetzel, it was because

I loved him. I was a woman, and I loved him, and I was weak. He said

that he loved me, that it would break his heart if I should refuse him;

and I could not help it. I tried hard. I tried to act against my heart.

I told him that my life had not been what he might wish it to be. I

begged him to go away. But he said that he cared nothing for the

past, and he urged me and pleaded with me, and I—I loved him so the

temptation was so strong—it was as if he had opened the gates of

heaven and invited me to enter—I caught a glimpse of the great

joy—of the great sorrow, too, of the sorrow that would follow to him

and to me if I sent him away—and my strength was insufficient—and we

were married.

“I am very tired, Mr. Hetzel. I have been writing for so long a time

that my fingers are cramped, and my back aches from bending over, and my

body has become chilled through by sitting still in this damp place, and

my head is thick and heavy. Yet I have some things still left to say.

You must pardon me if I am stupid and roundabout in coming to the point.

And if I do not succeed in making what I have on my mind very clear to

you, you must excuse me on the ground that I am quite worn out.

“As I have said, I was frank with Arthur Ripley. I warned him that my

past life had been darkened by sin. I said, ’If you knew about it, you

would not care to marry me.’ He retorted, The past is dead. You and

I have just been born.’ It did indeed seem so to me—as though I had

just been born. I allowed myself to be persuaded. We were married. But

then, Mr. Hetzel, as soon as I had yielded, I said to Arthur, ’It is

not right that I, your betrothed, should keep a secret from you. I

will tell you the whole story.’ I said this to him on more than one

occasion before we were married. And I repeated it again and again

afterward. But every time that I broached the subject, he put it aside.

He answered, ’No. Keep your secret as a reminder of my unwavering

confidence and perfect love.’ I supposed that he was sincere. I

marveled at his generosity, and loved him all the better, because of it.

Yet what was the truth? The truth was that in his inmost heart? he could

not help wishing to know what his wife’s secret was. But he played

the hypocrite. He forbade me to tell it to him—forbade me to unseal

my lips—and so got the credit for great magnanimity. Then, behind

my back, he associated with Benjamin Peixada, and learned from his

lips—not my secret—no, but the false, distorted version of it, which

Bernard Peixada’s brother would delight to give. What Benjamin Peixada

told him, he believed; and it was worse than he had bargained for. When

he understood that his wife had committed murder, that his wife had

stood, a common criminal, at the bar of the court of General Sessions,

lo! all the love that he had boasted, died an instant death. And

then—this is what is most infamous—then he contrived a cruel method

of letting me know that he knew. Instead of coming to me, and telling

me in a straightforward way, he put that advertisement into the paper.

That, I do think, was infamous. And all the time, he was pretending that

he loved me, and I was believing him, and treating him as a wife treats

her husband. I read that advertisement, and was completely deceived

by it. I went to Benjamin Peixada’s place. ’What do you wish with

me?’ I asked. He answered, ’Wait a little while, and the gentleman

who wrote that advertisement will come and explain to you. Wait a little

while, and I promise you a considerable surprise.’ I waited. The

gentleman came. The gentleman was Arthur. Not content with having

decoyed me to that place in that way, he—he called me by that

name—he called me Mrs. Peixada! The surprise was considerable, I

confess. And yet, you and Mrs. Hart wonder that I am indignant.

“Oh, of course, I understand that Arthur had no share in causing my

arrest. I understand that all he intended was to confront me there in

Benjamin Peixada’s office, and inform me that he knew who I was, and

denounce me, and repudiate me. But Benjamin Peixada had a little plan of

his own to carry through. When Arthur saw what it was—when he saw that

Benjamin Peixada had set a trap for me, and that I was to be taken away

to prison—then he was shocked and pained, and felt sorry for what he

had helped to do. You don’t need to explain that to me. That is not

why I feel the deep resentment toward him which, I admit, I do feel.

The bare fact that he pried into my secrets behind my back, and went

on pretending to love me at the same time, shows me that he never truly

loved me. You speak of my seeing him. It would be useless for me to

see him. He could not undo what he has done. All the explanations and

excuses that he could make, would not alter the fact that he went to

work without my knowledge, and found out what I had again and again

volunteered to tell him. If he suffers from supposing that I think he

had a share in causing my imprisonment, you may tell him that I think

no such thing. Tell him that I understand perfectly every thing that he

could say. Tell him that a meeting between us would only be productive

of fresh pain for each.

“Mr. Hetzel, if you were a woman, and if you had ever gone through the

agony of a public trial for murder in a crowded court-room, and if all

at once you beheld before you the prospect of going through that agony

for a second time, I am sure you would grasp eagerly at any means within

your reach by which to escape it. That is the case with me. I am a

woman. I have been tried for murder once—publicly tried, in a crowded

court-room. I would rather spend all the rest of my life in prison, than

be tried again. That is why I pleaded guilty this morning. If there were

any future to look forward to—if Arthur had acted differently—if

things were not as they are—then, perhaps—but it is useless to say

perhaps. I have nothing to live for—nothing worth purchasing at the

price of another trial.

“Does any thing remain for me to say? I do not think of any thing.

I hope I have made what I had to say clear enough. I beg that you will

forgive me, if I have trespassed beyond the limits of friendship, in

writing at such length.

“Yours sincerely,

“Ruth Ripley.

“Mr. Julian Hetzel, 43 Beekman Place.”