in a way it brought me a sense
of relief. To wait till all was propitious might mean continual delays.
The very fact of my uncertainty as to whether or not I should have the
courage of my wishes at the critical moment made an indefinite
prolongation of my present condition undesirable. Better one straight
risk and be done with it.

"I was to wait two weeks. Why she exacted so long and seemingly
unnecessary a delay, I do not know. Before I saw her, I thought it was
from a sheer desire to make me suffer; now I know it was not for that.
However, it did make me suffer, from the alternate weakening and
strengthening of my resolve. When the day came, the most trivial of
circumstances would have deterred me from what still had the nature of
a dream to me. Unhappily, everything worked for its fulfillment. There
had never been fewer persons in the building at the noon hour; nor had
there been a time during the past two weeks when the Curator was more
completely occupied in a spot quite remote from his office. As I tried
the door leading up the little winding staircase to the one back of the
tapestry where the bow lay, and found it, just as I had left it,
unlocked, I had a sense for the first time that the courage concerning
which I had had so many doubts would hold. At that moment I was a
murderer in heart and purpose, whatever I was after or have been since.
As I recognized this fact, I felt my face go pale and my limbs shake
from sheer horror of myself. But this weakness was short-lived and I
felt my blood flowing evenly again when having slipped into my place
behind the upper pedestal I peered through my peep-hole in a search for
her figure in the spot where I had bidden her await me.

"She was not there, but then it was not quite twelve, though the noon
hour was so near she must be somewhere in the gallery and liable at any
minute to cross my line of vision.

"It was fifteen years, as I have already said, since I had seen her;
and I had no other picture of her in my mind than the appearance she
had made as a girl, coarsened by time and disappointment. Why I should
have looked for just this sort of change in her, God knows, but I did
expect it and probably would not have recognized her if I had passed
her in the court. But I was not worrying about any mistake I might make
of this kind. All I seemed to fear was that at the critical moment some
one would