“Such a strange dream, papa!--sweet and strange, for I seemed to be dead, but I felt no sorrow for it, because life had been cruel to me, and I was glad to be at rest. Then she seemed to come and stand by my side, the mother I had never known till an hour before my death, when I saw her only as a proud, rich stranger. But in death she seemed to belong to me. She knelt by me and kissed my face, my hands, my hair; she called me Darling, and her tears rained on me while she deplored the cruel fate that parted us in life, and restored me to her only in death. Tell me, papa, could this be true? This proud, beautiful lady, was she my mother?” He had listened in surprise and wonder, and now he said evasively: “It was only a dream, you know, dear.” “Only a dream--but I hoped it might prove a reality. I--I--loved her so dearly in my dream because she was so sweet and tender,” faltered the girl with tears of disappointment starting to her eyes while her father gazed at her in secret wonder, longing to know what strange events had preceded her supposed death. He could not bear to see her yearning for the mother who had been so cruel to the father, but he did not know how to change that instinct of love; he could only say coldly: “Do not think any more of your dream, child. It was very misleading.” “Perhaps so,” she murmured humbly, believing it must be true what he said, for she could recall another dream that was, indeed, too subtly sweet to be aught but illusion. In that strange dream a voice all too fatally dear to her heart had murmured words of love and tenderness, vowing fealty to her in heaven: I love you, dearest one, all the while, My heart is as full as it can hold, There is place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth and the hair’s young gold, So, hush, I will give you this leaf to keep, See, I shut it inside the sweet, cold hand-- There, that is our secret! go to sleep; You will wake, and remember and understand. In that lovely dream he--Frank Laurier--had pressed his lips on her golden hair, had kissed a rose and crushed it between her folded hands. Was it only a dream? Yes, how could it be aught but a dream? He who had trifled with her, scorned her while living, how could he have changed when she lay dead? The tears brimmed over in her eyes as she thought: “How foolish I am, dwelling on such fancies. Of course, I have been ill--not dead!--and dreamed all about these people who care naught for me.” Leon Dalrymple took her hand and looked at her with tender pity. “My dear little one, do you feel well enough to go back with me over the cruel past?” he asked abruptly. She assented eagerly, and with some evasions that he deemed necessary, he gave her a brief résumé of his life.