At the last turn in the path Allan's cigar went out. While he stopped to light it again, Midwinter walked on before him, and was the first to come in sight of the open ground.
Allan had just kindled the match, when, to his surprise, his friend came back to him round the turn in the path. There was light enough to show objects more clearly in this part of the plantation. The match, as Midwinter faced him, dropped on the instant from Allan's hand.
"Good God!" he cried, starting back, "you look as you looked on board the Wreck!"
Midwinter held up his band for silence. He spoke with his wild eyes riveted on Allan's face, with his white lips close at Allan's ear.
"You remember how I looked," he answered, in a whisper. "Do you remember what I said when you and the doctor were talking of the Dream?"
"I have forgotten the Dream," said Allan.
As he made that answer, Midwinter took his hand, and led him round the last turn in the path.
"Do you remember it now?" he asked, and pointed to the Mere.
The sun was sinking in the cloudless westward heaven. The waters of the Mere lay beneath, tinged red by the dying light. The open country stretched away, darkening drearily already on the right hand and the left. And on the near margin of the pool, where all had been solitude before, there now stood, fronting the sunset, the figure of a woman.
The two Armadales stood together in silence, and looked at the lonely figure and the dreary view.
Midwinter was the first to speak.
"Your own eyes have seen it," he said. "Now look at our own words."
He opened the narrative of the Dream, and held it under Allan's eyes. His finger pointed to the lines which recorded the first Vision; his voice, sinking lower and lower, repeated the words: "The sense came to me of being left alone in the darkness.
"I waited.
"The darkness opened, and showed me the vision--as in a picture--of a broad, lonely pool, surrounded by open ground. Above the further margin of the pool I saw the cloudless western sky, red with the light of sunset.
"On the near margin of the pool there stood the Shadow of a Woman."
He ceased, and let the hand which held the manuscript drop to his side. The other hand pointed to the lonely figure, standing with its back turned on them, fronting the setting sun.