“When I came on duty that night, at seven o’clock, I saw that I was going to have a busy time of it.  Until that evening I can truthfully say that I never knew what nervousness was; but scarcely had I entered the station when I felt suddenly depressed.  I attributed the feeling to heat, and tried to pull myself together by poking fun at Herbert, whom I accused of wilfully keeping the trains late in order to shirk handling them.  Every night Herbert gave me a written account of the trains handled during the day, and especially drew my attention to any crossing orders that had to be attended to.  As Herbert was leaving the room I glanced at the book and saw there were no orders on hand.  This should have satisfied me that everything was all right; but it did not, and I called out to him and asked if there were any train orders.  He replied in a low, absent voice that there were none.  I could not help but notice his dejection, and a feeling of pity filled my heart for him.  The evening previous Julia had promised to be my wife.  Herbert did not know this, but I knew he had a presentiment that the girl he so dearly loved cared more for me than she did for him.  He did not, however, show any resentment, but appeared strangely depressed.  After he had left the station, I tried to drive away from my mind the foreboding of ill by reading; but, like Banquo’s ghost, it would not down.  I began to think I was going to be seriously ill.  Restlessly I paced the floor, longing for, yet dreading, the approach of the express train which was due at the station at 9 p.m.  The wind had risen and was buffeting the telegraph wires, making them hum in an exasperating manner.

“As the minutes slowly wore away, my disquietude alarmingly increased.  I was charged with a nervous dread, for which I could not find the slightest excuse; I knew, however, that in some strange way the approaching express was the cause of it.  I thought of Julia; surely the demon of unrest would be banished if I saw her.  With an almost childish impulse I sought her presence.  Before I had time to seat myself, Julia, with a woman’s keen perception, noticed my nervousness and asked the cause of it.  Man-like I laughed at her anxiety, and tried to deceive her by being boisterously happy, but of course this failed to allay her fears.  Before five minutes had elapsed I was madly anxious to get back to the operating room again, although I knew perfectly well there was nothing for me to do.  To this day I cannot understand what power, despite all my common-sense, made me hurry back, and again begin to hunt through the book for an order, which in my heart of hearts I knew perfectly well was not there.  After all, how little we know of the great other world and the influences that may be there at work!