He hesitated for a moment. A disagreeable feeling that some shock was awaiting him in this threatened revelation made him almost inclined to refuse to hear it, now and for always. What if he had refused? What if he had left her there and then, unconfessed of her secret, whatever it might be? Would it have changed his after life? would it have averted his fate? Often afterwards he asked himself this question, in wonder, in awe: that question which none on earth could answer. He did not refuse. He seated himself by her, and said: “You are mysterious.” “Yes,” she said, simply. “It is all a dreadful mystery. You know, every time I have seen you, you have made me feel stronger. That is why I ask you to see me for five days, and then I tell you all! I tell you—you will be frightened when you hear what I have to say!” There was no lightness about her voice and manner. Indeed, she spoke with reluctance, almost with pain. “I do not think there is much which can frighten me now,” said Hugh, reassuringly. “You can tell me everything, anything you please.” A nervous tremor shook her whole frame. “I _will_ tell you,” she said, almost convulsively. “I dreamed a dream once, when I was a child. I was sitting on a stone bench, such as we have in our country. But round me were dark trees, dark bushes of the sort we do not have there. It was dark. I dreamed I was in the expectation of some one to come to me. I was sitting there, waiting. Then I saw the moon, and just as I saw the moon, I saw some one who came—a man; and I knew that the man was the one I loved before everything, and as I did not love anyone else.” “Yes,” said Hugh, encouragingly. The words brought back some unpleasantly suggestive recollection, but indistinctly. “I woke from that dream,” she went on, musingly; “and I knew it was not like other dreams. I knew that it meant something. I had been not fond of people like my girl friends were fond of people; but that man, oh! I loved _him_!” “Did you recognise him?” asked Dr. Paull, feeling uncomfortable, he hardly knew why. She shook her head. “No,” she said, “not _then_.... I will tell you. I did not dream that dream again. It made me think; I told my confessor. It was not like other dreams. If ever I see the place I shall know it; of that I am sure.” “And the man?” asked Hugh. “I did not see his face,” she went on. “Only from what I felt did I guess him to be the same.” “As what?” His heart beat quick. “As the man of the dreams which made me so—so unhappy.” She spoke almost piteously. “And what were they?” asked Hugh. Pale as she had been when she came, she grew paler still.