By this time Mrs. Fairbank has got over her terror; she is devoured by
curiosity now. The miserable creature on the straw has appealed to the
imaginative side of her character. Her illimitable appetite for romance
hungers and thirsts for more. She shakes me impatiently by the arm.

"Do you hear? There is a woman at the bottom of it, Percy! There is love
and murder in it, Percy! Where are the people of the inn? Go into the
yard, and call to them again."

My wife belongs, on her mother's side, to the South of France. The South
of France breeds fine women with hot tempers. I say no more. Married men
will understand my position. Single men may need to be told that there are
occasions when we must not only love and honor--we must also obey--our
wives.

I turn to the door to obey _my_ wife, and find myself confronted by a
stranger who has stolen on us unawares. The stranger is a tiny, sleepy,
rosy old man, with a vacant pudding-face, and a shining bald head. He
wears drab breeches and gaiters, and a respectable square-tailed ancient
black coat. I feel instinctively that here is the landlord of the inn.

"Good morning, sir," says the rosy old man. "I'm a little hard of hearing.
Was it you that was a-calling just now in the yard?"

Before I can answer, my wife interposes. She insists (in a shrill voice,
adapted to our host's hardness of hearing) on knowing who that unfortunate
person is sleeping on the straw. "Where does he come from? Why does he say
such dreadful things in his sleep? Is he married or single? Did he ever
fall in love with a murderess? What sort of a looking woman was she? Did
she really stab him or not? In short, dear Mr. Landlord, tell us the whole
story!"

Dear Mr. Landlord waits drowsily until Mrs. Fairbank has quite done--then
delivers himself of his reply as follows:

"His name's Francis Raven. He's an Independent Methodist. He was
forty-five year old last birthday. And he's my hostler. That's his story."

My wife's hot southern temper finds its way to her foot, and expresses
itself by a stamp on the stable yard.

The landlord turns himself sleepily round, and looks at the horses. "A
fine pair of horses, them two in the yard. Do you want to put 'em in my
stables?" I reply in the affirmative by a nod. The landlord, bent on
making himself agreeable to my wife, addresses her once more. "I'm a-going
to wake Francis Raven. He's an Independent Methodist. He was forty-five
year old last birthday. And he's my hostler. That's his story."

Having issued this second edition of his interesting narrative, the
landlord enters the stable. We follow him to see how he will wake Francis
Raven, and what will happen upon that. The stable broom stands in a
corner; the landlord takes it--advances toward the sleeping hostler--and
coolly stirs the man up with a broom as if he was a wild beast in a cage.
Francis Raven starts to his feet with a cry of terror--looks at us wildly,
with a horrid glare of suspicion in his eyes--recovers himself the next
moment--and suddenly changes into a decent, quiet, respectable
serving-man.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am. I beg your pardon, sir."

The tone and manner in which he makes his apologies are both above his
apparent station in life. I begin to catch the infection of Mrs.
Fairbank's interest in this man. We both follow him out into the yard to
see what he will do with the horses. The manner in which he lifts the
injured leg of the lame horse tells me at once that he understands his
business. Quickly and quietly, he leads the animal into an empty stable;
quickly and quietly, he gets a bucket of hot water, and puts the lame
horse's leg into it. "The warm water will reduce the swelling, sir. I will
bandage the leg afterwards." All that he does is done intelligently; all
that he says, he says to the purpose.

Nothing wild, nothing strange about him now. Is this the same man whom we
heard talking in his sleep?--the same man who woke with that cry of terror
and that horrid suspicion in his eyes? I determine to try him with one or
two questions.


III

"Not much to do here," I say to the hostler.

"Very little to do, sir," the hostler replies.

"Anybody staying in the house?"

"The house is quite empty, sir."

"I thought you were all dead. I could make nobody hear me."

"The landlord is very deaf, sir, and the waiter is out on an errand."

"Yes; and _you_ were fast asleep in the stable. Do you often take a nap in
the daytime?"

The worn face of the hostler faintly flushes. His eyes look away from my
eyes for the first time. Mrs. Fairbank furtively pinches my arm. Are we on
the eve of a discovery at last? I repeat my question. The man has no civil
alternative but to give me an answer. The answer is given in these words:

"I was tired out, sir. You wouldn't have found me asleep in the daytime
but for that."

"Tired out, eh? You had been hard at work, I suppose?"

"No, sir."

"What was it, then?"

He hesitates again, and answers unwillingly, "I was up all night."

"Up all night? Anything going on in the town?"

"Nothing going on, sir."

"Anybody ill?"

"Nobody ill, sir."

That reply is the last. Try as I may, I can extract nothing more from him.
He turns away and busies himself in attending to the horse's leg. I leave
the stable to speak to the landlord about the carriage which is to take us
back to Farleigh Hall. Mrs. Fairbank remains with the hostler, and favors
me with a look at parting. The look says plainly, "_I_ mean to find out
why he was up all night. Leave him to Me."

The ordering of the carriage is easily accomplished. The inn possesses one
horse and one chaise. The landlord has a story to tell of the horse, and a
story to tell of the chaise. They resemble the story of Francis
Raven--with this exception, that the horse and chaise belong to no
religious persuasion. "The horse will be nine year old next birthday. I've
had the shay for four-and-twenty year. Mr. Max, of Underbridge, he bred
the horse; and Mr. Pooley, of Yeovil, he built the shay. It's my horse and
my shay. And that's _their_ story!" Having relieved his mind of these
details, the landlord proceeds to put the harness on the horse. By way of
assisting him, I drag the chaise into the yard. Just as our preparations
are completed, Mrs. Fairbank appears. A moment or two later the hostler
follows her out. He has bandaged the horse's leg, and is now ready to
drive us to Farleigh Hall. I observe signs of agitation in his face and
manner, which suggest that my wife has found her way into his confidence.
I put the question to her privately in a corner of the yard. "Well? Have
you found out why Francis Raven was up all night?"

Mrs. Fairbank has an eye to dramatic effect. Instead of answering plainly,
Yes or No, she suspends the interest and excites the audience by putting a
question on her side.

"What is the day of the month, dear?"

"The day of the month is the first of March."

"The first of March, Percy, is Francis Raven's birthday."

I try to look as if I was interested--and don't succeed.

"Francis was born," Mrs. Fairbank proceeds gravely, "at two o'clock in the
morning."

I begin to wonder whether my wife's intellect is going the way of the
landlord's intellect. "Is that all?" I ask.

"It is _not_ all," Mrs. Fairbank answers. "Francis Raven sits up on the
morning of his birthday because he is afraid to go to bed."

"And why is he afraid to go to bed?"

"Because he is in peril of his life."

"On his birthday?"

"On his birthday. At two o'clock in the morning. As regularly as the
birthday comes round."

There she stops. Has she discovered no more than that? No more thus far. I
begin to feel really interested by this time. I ask eagerly what it means?
Mrs. Fairbank points mysteriously to the chaise--with Francis Raven
(hitherto our hostler, now our coachman) waiting for us to get in. The
chaise has a seat for two in front, and a seat for one behind. My wife
casts a warning look at me, and places herself on the seat in front.

The necessary consequence of this arrangement is that Mrs. Fairbank sits
by the side of the driver during a journey of two hours and more. Need I
state the result? It would be an insult to your intelligence to state the
result. Let me offer you my place in the chaise. And let Francis Raven
tell his terrible story in his own words.




THE SECOND NARRATIVE





THE HOSTLER'S STORY.--TOLD BY HIMSELF


IV

It is now ten years ago since I got my first warning of the great trouble
of my life in the Vision of a Dream.

I shall be better able to tell you about it if you will please suppose
yourselves to be drinking tea along with us in our little cottage in
Cambridgeshire, ten years since.

The time was the close of day, and there were three of us at the table,
namely, my mother, myself, and my mother's sister, Mrs. Chance. These two
were Scotchwomen by birth, and both were widows. There was no other
resemblance between them that I can call to mind. My mother had lived all
her life in England, and had no more of the Scotch brogue on her tongue
than I have. My aunt Chance had never been out of Scotland until she came
to keep house with my mother after her husband's death. And when _she_
opened her lips you heard broad Scotch, I can tell you, if you ever heard
it yet!

As it fell out, there was a matter of some consequence in debate among us
that evening. It was this: whether I should do well or not to take a long
journey on foot the next morning.

Now the next morning happened to be the day before my birthday; and the
purpose of the journey was to offer myself for a situation as groom at a
great house in the neighboring county to ours. The place was reported as
likely to fall vacant in about three weeks' time. I was as well fitted to
fill it as any other man. In the prosperous days of our family, my father
had been manager of a training stable, and he had kept me employed among
the horses from my boyhood upward. Please to excuse my troubling you with
these small matters. They all fit into my story farther on, as you will
soon find out. My poor mother was dead against my leaving home on the
morrow.

"You can never walk all the way there and all the way back again by
to-morrow night," she says. "The end of it will be that you will sleep
away from home on your birthday. You have never done that yet, Francis,
since your father's death, I don't like your doing it now. Wait a day
longer, my son--only one day."

For my own part, I was weary of being idle, and I couldn't abide the
notion of delay. Even one day might make all the difference. Some other
man might take time by the forelock, and get the place.

"Consider how long I have been out of work," I says, "and don't ask me to
put off the journey. I won't fail you, mother. I'll get back by to-morrow
night, if I have to pay my last sixpence for a lift in a cart.

My mother shook her head. "I don't like it, Francis--I don't like it!"
There was no moving her from that view. We argued and argued, until we
were both at a deadlock. It ended in our agreeing to refer the difference
between us to my mother's sister, Mrs. Chance.

While we were trying hard to convince each other, my aunt Chance sat as
dumb as a fish, stirring her tea and thinking her own thoughts. When we
made our appeal to her, she seemed as it were to wake up. "Ye baith refer
it to my puir judgment?" she says, in her broad Scotch. We both answered
Yes. Upon that my aunt Chance first cleared the tea-table, and then pulled
out from the pocket of her gown a pack of cards.

Don't run away, if you please, with the notion that this was done lightly,
with a view to amuse my mother and me. My aunt Chance seriously believed
that she could look into the future by telling fortunes on the cards. She
did nothing herself without first consulting the cards. She could give no
more serious proof of her interest in my welfare than the proof which she
was offering now. I don't say it profanely; I only mention the fact--the
cards had, in some incomprehensible way, got themselves jumbled up
together with her religious convictions. You meet with people nowadays who
believe in spirits working by way of tables and chairs. On the same
principle (if there _is_ any principle in it) my aunt Chance believed in
Providence working by way of the cards.

"Whether _you_ are right, Francie, or your mither--whether ye will do weel
or ill, the morrow, to go or stay--the cairds will tell it. We are a' in
the hands of Proavidence. The cairds will tell it."

Hearing this, my mother turned her head aside, with something of a sour
look in her face. Her sister's notions about the cards were little better
than flat blasphemy to her mind. But she kept her opinion to herself. My
aunt Chance, to own the truth, had inherited, through her late husband, a
pension of thirty pounds a year. This was an important contribution to our
housekeeping, and we poor relations were bound to treat her with a certain
respect. As for myself, if my poor father never did anything else for me
before he fell into difficulties, he gave me a good education, and raised
me (thank God) above superstitions of all sorts. However, a very little
amused me in those days; and I waited to have my fortune told, as
patiently as if I believed in it too!

My aunt began her hocus pocus by throwing out all the cards in the pack
under seven. She shuffled the rest with her left hand for luck; and then
she gave them to me to cut. "Wi' yer left hand, Francie. Mind that! Pet
your trust in Proavidence--but dinna forget that your luck's in yer left
hand!" A long and roundabout shifting of the cards followed, reducing them
in number until there were just fifteen of them left, laid out neatly
before my aunt in a half circle. The card which happened to lie outermost,
at the right-hand end of the circle, was, according to rule in such cases,
the card chosen to represent Me. By way of being appropriate to my
situation as a poor groom out of employment, the card was--the King of
Diamonds.

"I tak' up the King o' Diamants," says my aunt. "I count seven cairds fra'
richt to left; and I humbly ask a blessing on what follows." My aunt shut
her eyes as if she was saying grace before meat, and held up to me the
seventh card. I called the seventh card--the Queen of Spades. My aunt
opened her eyes again in a hurry, and cast a sly look my way. "The Queen
o' Spades means a dairk woman. Ye'll be thinking in secret, Francie, of a
dairk woman?"

When a man has been out of work for more than three months, his mind isn't
troubled much with thinking of women--light or dark. I was thinking of the
groom's place at the great house, and I tried to say so. My aunt Chance
wouldn't listen. She treated my interpretation with contempt. "Hoot-toot!
there's the caird in your hand! If ye're no thinking of her the day, ye'll
be thinking of her the morrow. Where's the harm of thinking of a dairk
woman! I was ance a dairk woman myself, before my hair was gray. Haud yer
peace, Francie, and watch the cairds."

I watched the cards as I was told. There were seven left on the table. My
aunt removed two from one end of the row and two from the other, and
desired me to call the two outermost of the three cards now left on the
table. I called the Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds. My aunt Chance
lifted her eyes to the ceiling with a look of devout gratitude which
sorely tried my mother's patience. The Ace of Clubs and the Ten of
Diamonds, taken together, signified--first, good news (evidently the news
of the groom's place); secondly, a journey that lay before me (pointing
plainly to my journey to-morrow!); thirdly and lastly, a sum of money
(probably the groom's wages!) waiting to find its way into my pockets.
Having told my fortune in these encouraging terms, my aunt declined to
carry the experiment any further. "Eh, lad! it's a clean tempting o'
Proavidence to ask mair o' the cairds than the cairds have tauld us noo.
Gae yer ways to-morrow to the great hoose. A dairk woman will meet ye at
the gate; and she'll have a hand in getting ye the groom's place, wi' a'
the gratifications and pairquisites appertaining to the same. And, mebbe,
when yer poaket's full o' money, ye'll no' be forgetting yer aunt Chance,
maintaining her ain unblemished widowhood--wi' Proavidence assisting--on
thratty punds a year!"

I promised to remember my aunt Chance (who had the defect, by the way, of
being a terribly greedy person after money) on the next happy occasion
when my poor empty pockets were to be filled at last. This done, I looked
at my mother. She had agreed to take her sister for umpire between us, and
her sister had given it in my favor. She raised no more objections.
Silently, she got on her feet, and kissed me, and sighed bitterly--and so
left the room. My aunt Chance shook her head. "I doubt, Francie, yer puir
mither has but a heathen notion of the vairtue of the cairds!"

By daylight the next morning I set forth on my journey. I looked back at
the cottage as I opened the garden gate. At one window was my mother, with
her handkerchief to her eyes. At the other stood my aunt Chance, holding
up the Queen of Spades by way of encouraging me at starting. I waved my
hands to both of them in token of farewell, and stepped out briskly into
the road. It was then the last day of February. Be pleased to remember, in
connection with this, that the first of March was the day, and two o'clock
in the morning the hour of my birth.


V

Now you know how I came to leave home. The next thing to tell is, what
happened on the journey.

I reached the great house in reasonably good time considering the
distance. At the very first trial of it, the prophecy of the cards turned
out to be wrong. The person who met me at the lodge gate was not a dark
woman--in fact, not a woman at all--but a boy. He directed me on the way
to the servants' offices; and there again the cards were all wrong. I
encountered, not one woman, but three--and not one of the three was dark.
I have stated that I am not superstitious, and I have told the truth. But
I must own that I did feel a certain fluttering at the heart when I made
my bow to the steward, and told him what business had brought me to the
house. His answer completed the discomfiture of aunt Chance's
fortune-telling. My ill-luck still pursued me. That very morning another
man had applied for the groom's place, and had got it.

I swallowed my disappointment as well as I could, and thanked the steward,
and went to the inn in the village to get the rest and food which I sorely
needed by this time.

Before starting on my homeward walk I made some inquiries at the inn, and
ascertained that I might save a few miles, on my return, by following a
new road. Furnished with full instructions, several times repeated, as to
the various turnings I was to take, I set forth, and walked on till the
evening with only one stoppage for bread and cheese. Just as it was
getting toward dark, the rain came on and the wind began to rise; and I
found myself, to make matters worse, in a part of the country with which I
was entirely unacquainted, though I guessed myself to be some fifteen
miles from home. The first house I found to inquire at, was a lonely
roadside inn, standing on the outskirts of a thick wood. Solitary as the
place looked, it was welcome to a lost man who was also hungry, thirsty,
footsore, and wet. The landlord was civil and respectable-looking; and the
price he asked for a bed was reasonable enough. I was grieved to
disappoint my mother. But there was no conveyance to be had, and I could
go no farther afoot that night. My weariness fairly forced me to stop at
the inn.

I may say for myself that I am a temperate man. My supper simply consisted
of some rashers of bacon, a slice of home-made bread, and a pint of ale. I
did not go to bed immediately after this moderate meal, but sat up with
the landlord, talking about my bad prospects and my long run of ill-luck,
and diverging from these topics to the subjects of horse-flesh and racing.
Nothing was said, either by myself, my host, or the few laborers who
strayed into the tap-room, which could, in the slightest degree, excite
my mind, or set my fancy--which is only a small fancy at the best of
times--playing tricks with my common sense.

At a little after eleven the house was closed. I went round with the
landlord, and held the candle while the doors and lower windows were being
secured. I noticed with surprise the strength of the bolts, bars, and
iron-sheathed shutters.

"You see, we are rather lonely here," said the landlord. "We never have
had any attempts to break in yet, but it's always as well to be on the
safe side. When nobody is sleeping here, I am the only man in the house.
My wife and daughter are timid, and the servant girl takes after her
missuses. Another glass of ale, before you turn in?--No!--Well, how such a
sober man as you comes to be out of a place is more than I can understand
for one.--Here's where you're to sleep. You're the only lodger to-night,
and I think you'll say my missus has done her best to make you
comfortable. You're quite sure you won't have another glass of ale?--Very
well. Good night."

It was half-past eleven by the clock in the passage as we went upstairs to
the bedroom. The window looked out on the wood at the back of the house.

I locked my door, set my candle on the chest of drawers, and wearily got
me ready for bed. The bleak wind was still blowing, and the solemn,
surging moan of it in the wood was very dreary to hear through the night
silence. Feeling strangely wakeful, I resolved to keep the candle alight
until I began to grow sleepy. The truth is, I was not quite myself. I was
depressed in mind by my disappointment of the morning; and I was worn out
in body by my long walk. Between the two, I own I couldn't face the
prospect of lying awake in the darkness, listening to the dismal moan of
the wind in the wood.

Sleep stole on me before I was aware of it; my eyes closed, and I fell off
to rest, without having so much as thought of extinguishing the candle.

The next thing that I remember was a faint shivering that ran through me
from head to foot, and a dreadful sinking pain at my heart, such as I had
never felt before. The shivering only disturbed my slumbers--the pain woke
me instantly. In one moment I passed from a state of sleep to a state of
wakefulness--my eyes wide open--my mind clear on a sudden as if by a
miracle. The candle had burned down nearly to the last morsel of tallow,
but the unsnuffed wick had just fallen off, and the light was, for the
moment, fair and full.

Between the foot of the bed and the closet door, I saw a person in my
room. The person was a woman, standing looking at me, with a knife in her
hand. It does no credit to my courage to confess it--but the truth _is_
the truth. I was struck speechless with terror. There I lay with my eyes
on the woman; there the woman stood (with the knife in her hand) with
_her_ eyes on _me_.

She said not a word as we stared each other in the face; but she moved
after a little--moved slowly toward the left-hand side of the bed.

The light fell full on her face. A fair, fine woman, with yellowish flaxen
hair, and light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. I noticed
these things and fixed them in my mind, before she was quite round at the
side of the bed. Without saying a word; without any change in the stony
stillness of her face; without any noise following her footfall, she came
closer and closer; stopped at the bed-head; and lifted the knife to stab
me. I laid my arm over my throat to save it; but, as I saw the blow
coming, I threw my hand across the bed to the right side, and jerked my
body over that way, just as the knife came down, like lightning, within a
hair's breadth of my shoulder.

My eyes fixed on her arm and her hand--she gave me time to look at them as
she slowly drew the knife out of the bed. A white, well-shaped arm, with a
pretty down lying lightly over the fair skin. A delicate lady's hand, with
a pink flush round the finger nails.

She drew the knife out, and passed back again slowly to the foot of the
bed; she stopped there for a moment looking at me; then she came on
without saying a word; without any change in the stony stillness of her
face; without any noise following her footfall--came on to the side of the
bed where I now lay.

Getting near me, she lifted the knife again, and I drew myself away to the
left side. She struck, as before right into the mattress, with a swift
downward action of her arm; and she missed me, as before; by a hair's
breadth. This time my eyes wandered from _her_ to the knife. It was like
the large clasp knives which laboring men use to cut their bread and bacon
with. Her delicate little fingers did not hide more than two thirds of the
handle; I noticed that it was made of buckhorn, clean and shining as the
blade was, and looking like new.

For the second time she drew the knife out of the bed, and suddenly hid it
away in the wide sleeve of her gown. That done, she stopped by the bedside
watching me. For an instant I saw her standing in that position--then the
wick of the spent candle fell over into the socket. The flame dwindled to
a little blue point, and the room grew dark.

A moment, or less, if possible, passed so--and then the wick flared up,
smokily, for the last time. My eyes were still looking for her over the
right-hand side of the bed when the last flash of light came. Look as I
might, I could see nothing. The woman with the knife was gone.

I began to get back to myself again. I could feel my heart beating; I
could hear the woeful moaning of the wind in the wood; I could leap up in
bed, and give the alarm before she escaped from the house. "Murder! Wake
up there! Murder!"

Nobody answered to the alarm. I rose and groped my way through the
darkness to the door of the room. By that way she must have got in. By
that way she must have gone out.

The door of the room was fast locked, exactly as I had left it on going to
bed! I looked at the window. Fast locked too!

Hearing a voice outside, I opened the door. There was the landlord, coming
toward me along the passage, with his burning candle in one hand, and his
gun in the other.

"What is it?" he says, looking at me in no very friendly way.

I could only answer in a whisper, "A woman, with a knife in her hand. In
my room. A fair, yellow-haired woman. She jabbed at me with the knife,
twice over."

He lifted his candle, and looked at me steadily from head to foot. "She
seems to have missed you--twice over."

"I dodged the knife as it came down. It struck the bed each time. Go in,
and see."

The landlord took his candle into the bedroom immediately. In less than a
minute he came out again into the passage in a violent passion.

"The devil fly away with you and your woman with the knife! There isn't a
mark in the bedclothes anywhere. What do you mean by coming into a man's
place and frightening his family out of their wits by a dream?"

A dream? The woman who had tried to stab me, not a living human being like
myself? I began to shake and shiver. The horrors got hold of me at the
bare thought of it.

"I'll leave the house," I said. "Better be out on the road in the rain and
dark, than back in that room, after what I've seen in it. Lend me the
light to get my clothes by, and tell me what I'm to pay."

The landlord led the way back with his light into the bedroom. "Pay?" says
he. "You'll find your score on the slate when you go downstairs. I
wouldn't have taken you in for all the money you've got about you, if I
had known your dreaming, screeching ways beforehand. Look at the
bed--where's the cut of a knife in it? Look at the window--is the lock
bursted? Look at the door (which I heard you fasten yourself)--is it broke
in? A murdering woman with a knife in my house! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself!"

My eyes followed his hand as it pointed first to the bed--then to the
window--then to the door. There was no gainsaying it. The bed sheet was as
sound as on the day it was made. The window was fast. The door hung on its
hinges as steady as ever. I huddled my clothes on without speaking. We
went downstairs together. I looked at the clock in the bar-room. The time
was twenty minutes past two in the morning. I paid my bill, and the
landlord let me out. The rain had ceased; but the night was dark, and the
wind was bleaker than ever. Little did the darkness, or the cold, or the
doubt about the way home matter to _me_. My mind was away from all these
things. My mind was fixed on the vision in the bedroom. What had I seen
trying to murder me? The creature of a dream? Or that other creature from
the world beyond the grave, whom men call ghost? I could make nothing of
it as I walked along in the night; I had made nothing by it by
midday--when I stood at last, after many times missing my road, on the
doorstep of home.


VI

My mother came out alone to welcome me back. There were no secrets between
us two. I told her all that had happened, just as I have told it to you.
She kept silence till I had done. And then she put a question to me.

"What time was it, Francis, when you saw the Woman in your Dream?"

I had looked at the clock when I left the inn, and I had noticed that the
hands pointed to twenty minutes past two. Allowing for the time consumed
in speaking to the landlord, and in getting on my clothes, I answered that
I must have first seen the Woman at two o'clock in the morning. In other
words, I had not only seen her on my birthday, but at the hour of my
birth.

My mother still kept silence. Lost in her own thoughts, she took me by the
hand, and led me into the parlor. Her writing-desk was on the table by
the fireplace. She opened it, and signed to me to take a chair by her
side.

"My son! your memory is a bad one, and mine is fast failing me. Tell me
again what the Woman looked like. I want her to be as well known to both
of us, years hence, as she is now."

I obeyed; wondering what strange fancy might be working in her mind. I
spoke; and she wrote the words as they fell from my lips:

"Light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a
golden-yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little,
lady's hands, with a rosy-red look about the finger nails."

"Did you notice how she was dressed, Francis?"

"No, mother."

"Did you notice the knife?"

"Yes. A large clasp knife, with a buckhorn handle, as good as new."

My mother added the description of the knife. Also the year, month, day of
the week, and hour of the day when the Dream-Woman appeared to me at the
inn. That done, she locked up the paper in her desk.

"Not a word, Francis, to your aunt. Not a word to any living soul. Keep
your Dream a secret between you and me."

The weeks passed, and the months passed. My mother never returned to the
subject again. As for me, time, which wears out all things, wore out my
remembrance of the Dream. Little by little, the image of the Woman grew
dimmer and dimmer. Little by little, she faded out of my mind.


VII

The story of the warning is now told. Judge for yourself if it was a true
warning or a false, when you hear what happened to me on my next birthday.

In the Summer time of the year, the Wheel of Fortune turned the right way
for me at last. I was smoking my pipe one day, near an old stone quarry at
the entrance to our village, when a carriage accident happened, which gave
a new turn, as it were, to my lot in life. It was an accident of the
commonest kind--not worth mentioning at any length. A lady driving
herself; a runaway horse; a cowardly man-servant in attendance, frightened
out of his wits; and the stone quarry too near to be agreeable--that is
what I saw, all in a few moments, between two whiffs of my pipe. I stopped
the horse at the edge of the quarry, and got myself a little hurt by the
shaft of the chaise. But that didn't matter. The lady declared I had saved
her life; and her husband, coming with her to our cottage the next day,
took me into his service then and there. The lady happened to be of a dark
complexion; and it may amuse you to hear that my aunt Chance instantly
pitched on that circumstance as a means of saving the credit of the cards.
Here was the promise of the Queen of Spades performed to the very letter,
by means of "a dark woman," just as my aunt had told me. "In the time to
come, Francis, beware o' pettin' yer ain blinded intairpretation on the
cairds. Ye're ower ready, I trow, to murmur under dispensation of
Proavidence that ye canna fathom--like the Eesraelites of auld. I'll say
nae mair to ye. Mebbe when the mony's powering into yer poakets, ye'll no
forget yer aunt Chance, left like a sparrow on the housetop, wi' a sma'
annuitee o' thratty punds a year."

I remained in my situation (at the West-end of London) until the Spring of
the New Year. About that time, my master's health failed. The doctors
ordered him away to foreign parts, and the establishment was broken up.
But the turn in my luck still held good. When I left my place, I left
it--thanks to the generosity of my kind master--with a yearly allowance
granted to me, in remembrance of the day when I had saved my mistress's
life. For the future, I could go back to service or not, as I pleased; my
little income was enough to support my mother and myself.

My master and mistress left England toward the end of February. Certain
matters of business to do for them detained me in London until the last
day of the month. I was only able to leave for our village by the evening
train, to keep my birthday with my mother as usual. It was bedtime when I
got to the cottage; and I was sorry to find that she was far from well. To
make matters worse, she had finished her bottle of medicine on the
previous day, and had omitted to get it replenished, as the doctor had
strictly directed. He dispensed his own medicines, and I offered to go and
knock him up. She refused to let me do this; and, after giving me my
supper, sent me away to my bed.

I fell asleep for a little, and woke again. My mother's bed-chamber was
next to mine. I heard my aunt Chance's heavy footsteps going to and fro in
the room, and, suspecting something wrong, knocked at the door. My
mother's pains had returned upon her; there was a serious necessity for
relieving her sufferings as speedily as possible, I put on my clothes, and
ran off, with the medicine bottle in my hand, to the other end of the
village, where the doctor lived. The church clock chimed the quarter to
two on my birthday just as I reached his house. One ring of the night bell
brought him to his bedroom window to speak to me. He told me to wait, and
he would let me in at the surgery door. I noticed, while I was waiting,
that the night was wonderfully fair and warm for the time of year. The old
stone quarry where the carriage accident had happened was within view. The
moon in the clear heavens lit it up almost as bright as day.

In a minute or two the doctor let me into the surgery. I closed the door,
noticing that he had left his room very lightly clad. He kindly pardoned
my mother's neglect of his directions, and set to work at once at
compounding the medicine. We were both intent on the bottle; he filling
it, and I holding the light--when we heard the surgery door suddenly
opened from the street.


VIII

Who could possibly be up and about in our quiet village at the second hour
of the morning?

The person who opened the door appeared within range of the light of the
candle. To complete our amazement, the person proved to be a woman! She
walked up to the counter, and standing side by side with me, lifted her
veil. At the moment when she showed her face, I heard the church clock
strike two. She was a stranger to me, and a stranger to the doctor. She
was also, beyond all comparison, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen
in my life.

"I saw the light under the door," she said. "I want some medicine."

She spoke quite composedly, as if there was nothing at all extraordinary
in her being out in the village at two in the morning, and following me
into the surgery to ask for medicine! The doctor stared at her as if he
suspected his own eyes of deceiving him. "Who are you?" he asked. "How do
you come to be wandering about at this time in the morning?"

She paid no heed to his questions. She only told him coolly what she
wanted. "I have got a bad toothache. I want a bottle of laudanum."

The doctor recovered himself when she asked for the laudanum. He was on
his own ground, you know, when it came to a matter of laudanum; and he
spoke to her smartly enough this time.

"Oh, you have got the toothache, have you? Let me look at the tooth."

She shook her head, and laid a two-shilling piece on the counter. "I won't
trouble you to look at the tooth," she said. "There is the money. Let me
have the laudanum, if you please."

The doctor put the two-shilling piece back again in her hand. "I don't
sell laudanum to strangers," he answered. "If you are in any distress of
body or mind, that is another matter. I shall be glad to help you."

She put the money back in her pocket. "_You_ can't help me," she said, as
quietly as ever. "Good morning."

With that, she opened the surgery door to go out again into the street. So
far, I had not spoken a word on my side. I had stood with the candle in my
hand (not knowing I was holding it)--with my eyes fixed on her, with my
mind fixed on her like a man bewitched. Her looks betrayed, even more
plainly than her words, her resolution, in one way or another, to destroy
herself. When she opened the door, in my alarm at what might happen I
found the use of my tongue.

"Stop!" I cried out. "Wait for me. I want to speak to you before you go
away." She lifted her eyes with a look of careless surprise and a mocking
smile on her lips.

"What can _you_ have to say to me?" She stopped, and laughed to herself.
"Why not?" she said. "I have got nothing to do, and nowhere to go." She
turned back a step, and nodded to me. "You're a strange man--I think I'll
humor you--I'll wait outside." The door of the surgery closed on her. She
was gone.

I am ashamed to own what happened next. The only excuse for me is that I
was really and truly a man bewitched. I turned me round to follow her out,
without once thinking of my mother. The doctor stopped me.

"Don't forget the medicine," he said. "And if you will take my advice,
don't trouble yourself about that woman. Rouse up the constable. It's his
business to look after her--not yours."

I held out my hand for the medicine in silence: I was afraid I should fail
in respect if I trusted myself to answer him. He must have seen, as I saw,
that she wanted the laudanum to poison herself. He had, to my mind, taken
a very heartless view of the matter. I just thanked him when he gave me
the medicine--and went out.

She was waiting for me as she had promised; walking slowly to and fro--a
tall, graceful, solitary figure in the bright moonbeams. They shed over
her fair complexion, her bright golden hair, her large gray eyes, just the
light that suited them best. She looked hardly mortal when she first
turned to speak to me.

"Well?" she said. "And what do you want?"

In spite of my pride, or my shyness, or my better sense--whichever it
might me--all my heart went out to her in a moment. I caught hold of her
by the hands, and owned what was in my thoughts, as freely as if I had
known her for half a lifetime.

"You mean to destroy yourself," I said. "And I mean to prevent you from
doing it. If I follow you about all night, I'll prevent you from doing
it."

She laughed. "You saw yourself that he wouldn't sell me the laudanum. Do
you really care whether I live or die?" She squeezed my hands gently as
she put the question: her eyes searched mine with a languid, lingering
look in them that ran through me like fire. My voice died away on my lips;
I couldn't answer her.

She understood, without my answering. "You have given me a fancy for
living, by speaking kindly to me," she said. "Kindness has a wonderful
effect on women, and dogs, and other domestic animals. It is only men who
are superior to kindness. Make your mind easy--I promise to take as much
care of myself as if I was the happiest woman living! Don't let me keep
you here, out of your bed. Which way are you going?"

Miserable wretch that I was, I had forgotten my mother--with the medicine
in my hand! "I am going home," I said. "Where are you staying? At the
inn?"

She laughed her bitter laugh, and pointed to the stone quarry. "There is
my inn for to-night," she said. "When I got tired of walking about, I
rested there."

We walked on together, on my way home. I took the liberty of asking her if
she had any friends.

"I thought I had one friend left," she said, "or you would never have met
me in this place. It turns out I was wrong. My friend's door was closed in
my face some hours since; my friend's servants threatened me with the
police. I had nowhere else to go, after trying my luck in your
neighborhood; and nothing left but my two-shilling piece and these rags on
my back. What respectable innkeeper would take _me_ into his house? I
walked about, wondering how I could find my way out of the world without
disfiguring myself, and without suffering much pain. You have no river in
these parts. I didn't see my way out of the world, till I heard you
ringing at the doctor's house. I got a glimpse at the bottles in the
surgery, when he let you in, and I thought of the laudanum directly. What
were you doing there? Who is that medicine for? Your wife?"

"I am not married!"

She laughed again. "Not married! If I was a little better dressed there
might be a chance for ME. Where do you live? Here?"

We had arrived, by this time, at my mother's door. She held out her hand
to say good-by. Houseless and homeless as she was, she never asked me to
give her a shelter for the night. It was my proposal that she should rest,
under my roof, unknown to my mother and my aunt. Our kitchen was built out
at the back of the cottage: she might remain there unseen and unheard
until the household was astir in the morning. I led her into the kitchen,
and set a chair for her by the dying embers of the fire. I dare say I was
to blame--shamefully to blame, if you like. I only wonder what _you_ would
have done in my place. On your word of honor as a man, would _you_ have
let that beautiful creature wander back to the shelter of the stone quarry
like a stray dog? God help the woman who is foolish enough to trust and
love you, if you would have done that!

I left her by the fire, and went to my mother's room.


IX

If you have ever felt the heartache, you will know what I suffered in
secret when my mother took my hand, and said, "I am sorry, Francis, that
your night's rest has been disturbed through _me_." I gave her the
medicine; and I waited by her till the pains abated. My aunt Chance went
back to her bed; and my mother and I were left alone. I noticed that her
writing-desk, moved from its customary place, was on the bed by her side.
She saw me looking at it. "This is your birthday, Francis," she said.
"Have you anything to tell me?" I had so completely forgotten my Dream,
that I had no notion of what was passing in her mind when she said those
words. For a moment there was a guilty fear in me that she suspected
something. I turned away my face, and said, "No, mother; I have nothing to
tell." She signed to me to stoop down over the pillow and kiss her. "God
bless you, my love!" she said; "and many happy returns of the day." She
patted my hand, and closed her weary eyes, and, little by little, fell off
peaceably into sleep.

I stole downstairs again. I think the good influence of my mother must
have followed me down. At any rate, this is true: I stopped with my hand
on the closed kitchen door, and said to myself: "Suppose I leave the
house, and leave the village, without seeing her or speaking to her more?"

Should I really have fled from temptation in this way, if I had been left
to myself to decide? Who can tell? As things were, I was not left to
decide. While my doubt was in my mind, she heard me, and opened the
kitchen door. My eyes and her eyes met. That ended it.

We were together, unsuspected and undisturbed, for the next two hours.
Time enough for her to reveal the secret of her wasted life. Time enough
for her to take possession of me as her own, to do with me as she liked.
It is needless to dwell here on the misfortunes which had brought her
low; they are misfortunes too common to interest anybody.

Her name was Alicia Warlock. She had been born and bred a lady. She had
lost her station, her character, and her friends. Virtue shuddered at the
sight of her; and Vice had got her for the rest of her days. Shocking and
common, as I told you. It made no difference to _me_. I have said it
already--I say it again--I was a man bewitched. Is there anything so very
wonderful in that? Just remember who I was. Among the honest women in my
own station in life, where could I have found the like of _her_? Could
_they_ walk as she walked? and look as she looked? When _they_ gave me a
kiss, did their lips linger over it as hers did? Had _they_ her skin, her
laugh, her foot, her hand, her touch? _She_ never had a speck of dirt on
her: I tell you her flesh was a perfume. When she embraced me, her arms
folded round me like the wings of angels; and her smile covered me softly
with its light like the sun in heaven. I leave you to laugh at me, or to
cry over me, just as your temper may incline. I am not trying to excuse
myself--I am trying to explain. You are gentle-folks; what dazzled and
maddened _me_, is everyday experience to _you_. Fallen or not, angel or
devil, it came to this--she was a lady; and I was a groom.

Before the house was astir, I got her away (by the workmen's train) to a
large manufacturing town in our parts.

Here--with my savings in money to help her--she could get her outfit of
decent clothes and her lodging among strangers who asked no questions so
long as they were paid. Here--now on one pretense and now on another--I
could visit her, and we could both plan together what our future lives
were to be. I need not tell you that I stood pledged to make her my wife.
A man in my station always marries a woman of her sort.

Do you wonder if I was happy at this time? I should have been perfectly
happy but for one little drawback. It was this: I was never quite at my
ease in the presence of my promised wife.

I don't mean that I was shy with her, or suspicious of her, or ashamed of
her. The uneasiness I am speaking of was caused by a faint doubt in my
mind whether I had not seen her somewhere, before the morning when we met
at the doctor's house. Over and over again, I found myself wondering
whether her face did not remind me of some other face--_what_ other I
never could tell. This strange feeling, this one question that could never
be answered, vexed me to a degree that you would hardly credit. It came
between us at the strangest times--oftenest, however, at night, when the
candles were lit. You have known what it is to try and remember a
forgotten name--and to fail, search as you may, to find it in your mind.
That was my case. I failed to find my lost face, just as you failed to
find your lost name.

In three weeks we had talked matters over, and had arranged how I was to
make a clean breast of it at home. By Alicia's advice, I was to describe
her as having been one of my fellow servants during the time I was
employed under my kind master and mistress in London. There was no fear
now of my mother taking any harm from the shock of a great surprise. Her
health had improved during the three weeks' interval. On the first evening
when she was able to take her old place at tea time, I summoned my
courage, and told her I was going to be married. The poor soul flung her
arms round my neck, and burst out crying for joy. "Oh, Francis!" she says,
"I am so glad you will have somebody to comfort you and care for you when
I am gone!" As for my aunt Chance, you can anticipate what _she_ did,
without being told. Ah, me! If there had really been any prophetic virtue
in the cards, what a terrible warning they might have given us that night!
It was arranged that I was to bring my promised wife to dinner at the
cottage on the next day.


X

I own I was proud of Alicia when I led her into our little parlor at the
appointed time. She had never, to my mind, looked so beautiful as she
looked that day. I never noticed any other woman's dress--I noticed hers
as carefully as if I had been a woman myself! She wore a black silk gown,
with plain collar and cuffs, and a modest lavender-colored bonnet, with
one white rose in it placed at the side. My mother, dressed in her Sunday
best, rose up, all in a flutter, to welcome her daughter-in-law that was
to be. She walked forward a few steps, half smiling, half in tears--she
looked Alicia full in the face--and suddenly stood still. Her cheeks
turned white in an instant; her eyes stared in horror; her hands dropped
helplessly at her sides. She staggered back, and fell into the arms of my
aunt, standing behind her. It was no swoon--she kept her senses. Her eyes
turned slowly from Alicia to me. "Francis," she said, "does that woman's
face remind you of nothing?".

Before I could answer, she pointed to her writing-desk on the table at the
fireside. "Bring it!" she cried, "bring it!".

At the same moment I felt Alicia's hand on my shoulder, and saw Alicia's
face red with anger--and no wonder!

"What does this mean?" she asked. "Does your mother want to insult me?".

I said a few words to quiet her; what they were I don't remember--I was so
confused and astonished at the time. Before I had done, I heard my mother
behind me.

My aunt had fetched her desk. She had opened it; she had taken a paper
from it. Step by step, helping herself along by the wall, she came nearer
and nearer, with the paper in her hand. She looked at the paper--she
looked in Alicia's face--she lifted the long, loose sleeve of her gown,
and examined her hand and arm. I saw fear suddenly take the place of anger
in Alicia's eyes. She shook herself free of my mother's grasp. "Mad!" she
said to herself, "and Francis never told me!" With those words she ran out
of the room.