om I meditated
this crime was connected in my mind with Alpine scenery and Alpine
events. It was at Lucerne I had first met her, young and fresh, but
giving no promise of the woman she has since become; and in the visions
which came and went before my eyes, it was not herself I saw so much as
the surroundings of those days, and the feats of prowess by which I had
hoped to win her approbation. Among these was the shooting at a small
target with a bow and arrow. I became very proficient in this line. I
shot as by instinct. I could never tell whether I really took aim or
not, but the arrow infallibly hit the mark. In my dreams I always saw
it flying, and when this bow came to hand a thought of what the two
might accomplish came with it. Yet even then I had no real idea of
putting into practice this fancy of a distempered brain. I brought the
bow up from the cellar and hid it unstrung in the Curator's closet,
more from idle impulse I fondly thought, than from any definite
purpose. Another day I saw the Curator's keys lying on his desk and
took them to open a passage to the upper floor. But for all that, I
felt sure that I would never use the bow even after I had thrust it
near to hand behind the tapestry masking the secret entrance to this
passage. One dreams of such things but they do not perpetrate them. I
might approach the deed, I might even make every preparation for its
accomplishment, but that did not mean that the day would ever come
when I should actually loose an arrow from this bow against a human
breast. More than once I laughed at the mere idea.

"But the devil knew me better than I knew myself. Impelled by these
same instincts, I answered the letter sent me with the assurance that I
would surely see her, but I did not name any day, intuitively knowing
that what I dreamed of doing but certainly should not do required a
certain set of circumstances not easily to be met with. Instead, I bade
her show herself in the second section of the southern gallery, every
Tuesday and Friday at the exact hour of noon. If at the moment the two
hands of the clock came together, she saw me on the lower step of the
main staircase, she was to know that I was free to talk and would soon
join her. If she did not see me there, she was to return home and come
another day. She answered that she would come but once, and set the
day. This was startling to my pride, but