Yes, there they were--the familiar tortures of his slumbers, the shadows of busy, eager faces; and upon all one universal expression of mingled anger and surprise. The sound of a wooden hammer striking three solemn strokes; the faint tones of Tom Halliday's voice, thanking him for his friendly care; the dying look in Tom Halliday's face, turned to him with such depth of trust and affection. And then across the shadowy realm of dreams there swept the slow solemn progress of a funeral _cortege_--plumed hearses, blacker than blackest night; innumerable horses, with funereal trappings and plumed headgear waving in an icy wind; long trains of shrouded figures stretching on into infinite space, in spectral procession that knew neither beginning nor end. And in all the solemn crowd passing perpetually with the same unceasing motion, there was no sound of human footfall, no tramp of horse's hoof, only that dismal waving of black plumage in an icy wind, and the deep boom of a bell tolling for the dead. He awoke with a start, and exclaimed, "If this is what it is to sleep, I will never sleep again!" In the next minute he recovered himself. He had been lying on his back. The endless pageant, the dreadful tolling of the funeral bell, meant no more than nightmare, the common torment of all humanity. "What a fool I must be!" he muttered to himself, as he wiped his forehead, which had grown cold and damp in the agony of his dream. He opened the shutters, and then looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. To his surprise he found that he had been sleeping three hours. It was nine o'clock. He went upstairs to dress. There was an unusual stir in the corridor above. Ann Woolper was standing there, with her hand on the door of the sick-room, talking to Diana, who covered her face suddenly as he approached, and disappeared into her own room. The beating of his heart quickened suddenly. Something had happened to disturb the common course of events. Something? What was likely to happen, except the one dread circumstance for which he hoped and waited with such horrible eagerness? In Ann Woolper's solemn face he read an answer to his thought. For the first time he was well nigh losing his self-possession. It was with an effort that he steadied himself sufficiently to ask the usual conventional question in the usual conventional tone. "Is she any better this morning, Ann?" "Yes, sir, she is much better," the Yorkshirewoman answered solemnly. "She is where none can harm her now." Yes; it was the usual periphrase of these vulgar people. He knew all their cant by heart. "You mean to say--she--is dead?" He no longer tried to conceal his agitation. It was a part of his duty to be agitated by the news of his stepdaughter's untimely death.