These were not my exact words, but that was the sense of them, as
nearly as my sudden and conflicting emotions permitted me to express
it. I rose and left her without another look at her, met the others
as they reentered the room and said, as calmly as I could: "I have
been bidding Miss Margovan good evening; it is later than I thought."

John decided to go with me. In the street he asked if I had observed
anything singular in Julia's manner.

"I thought her ill," I replied; "that is why I left." Nothing more
was said.

The next evening I came late to my lodgings. The events of the
previous evening had made me nervous and ill; I had tried to cure
myself and attain to clear thinking by walking in the open air, but I
was oppressed with a horrible presentiment of evil--a presentiment
which I could not formulate. It was a chill, foggy night; my
clothing and hair were damp and I shook with cold. In my dressing-
gown and slippers before a blazing grate of coals I was even more
uncomfortable. I no longer shivered but shuddered--there is a
difference. The dread of some impending calamity was so strong and
dispiriting that I tried to drive it away by inviting a real sorrow--
tried to dispel the conception of a terrible future by substituting
the memory of a painful past. I recalled the death of my parents and
endeavored to fix my mind upon the last sad scenes at their bedsides
and their graves. It all seemed vague and unreal, as having occurred
ages ago and to another person. Suddenly, striking through my
thought and parting it as a tense cord is parted by the stroke of
steel--I can think of no other comparison--I heard a sharp cry as of
one in mortal agony! The voice was that of my brother and seemed to