When he had reappeared, in his great loose grey flannels, his straw hat on his head, a book in his hand, and had gone downstairs, I flew along the corridor and pushed open the door of the room he had left. Berthalina, it was the room of my dream! Those details which had impressed themselves so clearly on my sleeping vision last night were here in the flesh--well not exactly in the flesh, but--. I stood at the window, wide open from the bottom; the sea lay sparkling in the sunlight-- Of course, you remember the time when I stayed with you, my dear friend, after that crisis in my stupid life of which you and only one other knew? You haven't forgotten how I terrified you nearly to death by walking in my sleep to your room? and how, afterwards, you insisted on keeping the key of my bedroom door under your own pillow? To the best of my belief I have never sleep-walked either before or since that time. The certainty came to me now, as I stood at the man's window, that I had done it again last night! * * * * * "And what have you been doing with yourself, all day?" I had turned my back on the pier bands, on the crowds of the esplanade, and had wandered as far as my legs would carry me along the beach--a hard, smooth beach of yellow sand--and was sitting there, with only the waves for company, when the voice of the man I had successfully dodged all day spoke at my back. "You were not at lunch, nor at the table d'hôte, to-night," he added; and I did not consider that the statement demanded comment. He came and sat beside me, and gathered up his knees into his arms and looked out to sea. "I suppose the beach is free to all?" he remarked; and my silence did not gainsay him. "I am like you," he went on: "I care nothing for all that," he jerked his head in the direction of the town and the populace. "I'm never afraid of my own company. And you?" "I prefer it to all other company," I assured him, and told the lie with the acrimony of truth. "And you have been by the sea all day?" "I have been tramping the town looking for rooms." "You are not comfortable at the hotel?" "I prefer apartments." "Perhaps for a young woman, alone, it is better." Now for my opportunity. "I have not been alone until this morning," I told him steadily. "My sister left me by the early train; before breakfast." "You probably miss her very much?" "I do. She scarcely ever leaves me. We have everything in common. She is my twin-sister. You could scarcely tell the one from the other, apart." The information did not flow from me as I desired, but was, rather, gasped out--or so it seems to me on looking back.