“It came into the house,” she said, her breath recovered now, and her voice gentle. “It follered me--out here. I ran.” She looked swiftly round at me. The radiance in her face was quite astonishing, turning her almost beautiful. Her eyelids quivered a moment and the corners of her lips seemed trying to smile--or not to smile. She was happy there, sitting between us two. Yet there was nothing light or foolish in her. Something of worship rose in me as I watched her. “Well,” urged Julius, “and then--what?” I saw him watching me as well as her. “You remembered your dream, you felt something, and--you ran out here to us. What else?” She hesitated deliciously. But it was not that she wanted coaxing. She evidently knew not how to tell the thing she had to say. She looked hard into my face, her eyes keenly searching. “It has something to do with _him_, you mean?” asked Julius, noting the direction of her questioning gaze. “Oh, I’m glad he’s here,” she answered quickly. “It’s the best thing that could happen.” And she looked round again at Julius, moving her hand upon his own. “We need him,” said Julius simply with a smile. Then, suddenly, she took my hand too, and held it tightly. “He’s a protection, I think, as well,” she added quite gravely; “that’s how I feel him.” Her hand lay warm and fast on mine. There was a pause. I felt her fingers strongly clasp my own. The three of us were curiously linked together somehow by those two hands of hers. A great harmony united us. The day was glorious, the power of the sun divine, there was power in the wind that touched our faces. “Yes,” she continued slowly, “I think it had to do with him--with _you_, Professor,” she repeated emphatically, fixing her bright gaze upon me. “I think you brought it--brought my dream back--brought that thing I dreamed about into--the house itself.” And in her excitement she said distinctly “’ouse.” I found no word to say at the moment. She kept her hand firmly upon mine. “I was making bread there, by the back winder as usual,” she went on, “when suddenly I started thinking of that splendid dream I’ve had so of_t_en--of you,” looking at her husband, “and me and another man--that’s _you_ I’m sure,” she gazed at me--“all three of us doing some awful thing together in a place underground somewhere, but dressed quite different to what we are now, and standing round a lot of people sleeping in a row--when something we expected, yet were frightened at, used to come in--and give me such a start that I always woke up before knowing what was really going to happen.” She paused a second. She was confused. Her sentences ran into each other.