as thunderstruck at the
inconceivable artfulness with which she had mixed up truth and falsehood
in her charge against my mistress and me.

This was, in substance, what she now stated in my presence:

After describing the manner of Mr. James Smith's arrival at the Hall,
the witness, Josephine Durand, confessed that she had been led to listen
at the music-room door by hearing angry voices inside, and she then
described, truly enough, the latter part of the altercation between
husband and wife. Fearing, after this, that something serious might
happen, she had kept watch in her room, which was on the same floor as
her mistress's. She had heard her mistress's door open softly between
one and two in the morning--had followed her mistress, who carried a
small lamp, along the passage and down the stairs into the hall--had
hidden herself in the porter's chair--had seen her mistress take a
dagger in a green sheath from a collection of Eastern curiosities kept
in the hall--had followed her again, and seen her softly enter the Red
Room--had heard the heavy breathing of Mr. James Smith, which gave token
that he was asleep--had slipped into an empty room, next door to the Red
Roam, and had waited there about a quarter of an hour, when her mistress
came out again with the dagger in her hand--had followed her mistress
again into the hall, where she had put the dagger back into its
place--had seen her mistress turn into a side passage that led to my
room--had heard her knock at my door, and heard me answer and open
it--had hidden again in the porter's chair--had, after a while, seen
me and my mistress pass together into the passage that led to the Red
Room--had watched us both into the Red Room--and had then, through fear
of being discovered and murdered herself, if she risked detection any
longer, stolen back to her own room for the rest of the night.

After deposing on oath to the truth of these atrocious falsehoods, and
declaring, in conclusion, that Mr. James Smith had been murdered by
my mistress, and that I was an accomplice, the quadroon had further
asserted, in order to show a motive for the crime, that Mr. Meeke was my
mistress's lover; that he had been forbidden the house by her husband,
and that he was found in the house, and alone with her, on the evening
of Mr. James Smith's return. Here again there were some grains of truth
cunningly mixed up with a revolting lie, and they had their effect in
giving to the falsehood a l