"Edward," she exclaimed on wakening, "is it you?"
"Who should it be?" I demanded--all my suspicions renewed by her
question.
"I am so glad. I have had such a dream. Oh! Edward, I dreamed that
you were killing me!"
"Ha! what could have occasioned such a dream?"
My demon suggested, at this moment, that her dream had been
occasioned by a consciousness of what her guilty fancies deserved.
But she replied promptly:-"Nay, I know not. It was the strangest fancy. I thought that you
pursued me along the river--that my foot slipped and I fell among
the bushes, where you caught me, and it was just when you were
strangling me that I wakened."
"Your dream was occasioned by the affair of the afternoon. Was
nobody present but ourselves?"
"Yes--there was a man at a little distance beyond us, and he seemed
to be running from you also."
"A man! who was he?"
"I don't know exactly--his back was turned, but it seemed as if it
was Mr. Edgerton."
"Ha! Mr. Edgerton!"
A deep silence followed. She had spoken her reply firmly, but so
slowly as to convince me of the mental reluctance which she felt in
uttering this part of the dream. When the imagination is excited,
how small are the events that confirm its ascendency, and stimulate
its progress. This dream seemed to me as significant as any of the
signs that informed the ancient augurs. It bore me irresistibly
forward in the direction of my previous thoughts. I began to see
the path--dark, dismal--perhaps bloody--which lay before me. I began
to feel the deed, already in my soul, which destiny was about to
require me to perform. A crime, half meditated, is already half
committed. This is the danger of brooding upon the precipice of
evil thoughts. A moment's dizziness--a single plunge--and all is
over!
I doubt whether Julia slept much the remainder of the night. I know
that I did not. She had her consciousness as well as mine. THAT I
now know. The question--"was her consciousness a guilty one?" That
was the only question which remained for me!
Tho next morning I saw Edgerton. He looked quite as well as on the
previous night, but professed to feel otherwise--declined coming
forth to breakfast and begged me to send the physician to him on
my way to the office. I immediately conjectured that this was mere
practice, for he had not taken the medicine which had been prescribed.
"He must keep sick to keep HERE," said my demon. "He can have no
pretext, otherwise, to stay!"
When I was about to leave the house Julia followed me to the door.
"Don't forget to bring mother's letter with you," was her parting
direction. I had not been half an hour at the office before
a little servant-girl, who tended in the house, came to me with a
message from her, requesting that the letter might be sent by her.