"For a novice," said she, "you seem to be doing very well." Charnock resumed his story. "I dreamt solely of people I had seen, and incidents I had witnessed during the last week, at Tangier and at Plymouth. I dreamed particularly of a man I quarrelled with at Plymouth, and I suddenly woke up and saw your face in the mirror." "As you fancied." "It was no fancy. It was no dream-face that I saw--dream-faces are always elusive. It was no dream-face, it was yours." "Or one like mine." "There cannot be two." "For a novice," repeated Miranda, with a smile, "you _are_ doing very well." Charnock had watched her carefully while he told his story, on the chance that her looks, if not her lips, might give him some clue to the comprehension of his mysterious vision. But she had expressed merely an unconcerned curiosity and some amusement. "Shall I explain your vision?" said she. "You must have seen me in London during the day: the recollection that you had seen me must have lain latent, so that when you woke up you saw me in your mirror and did not remember that you had seen me during the day." "Were you at any theatre this day week?" "No," said Miranda, after counting over the days. "You did not see _Macbeth_ that night?" "No." "Then it is impossible I should have seen you. For I came up from Plymouth only that afternoon. I drove from Paddington to my hotel; from the hotel I went to the theatre; from the theatre I walked back to the hotel. It is impossible." "It is very strange," said Miranda, whose interest was increasing, and whose sense of amusement had vanished; for she saw that her companion was moved by something more than curiosity. It was evident to her from his urgent tones, from the eagerness of his face, that he had some hidden reason for his desire to fathom the mystery. It seemed to her that he nourished some intention, some purpose in the back of his mind, which depended for fulfilment upon whether or no there was any feasible solution. "Tell me your dream," she said. "It was the oddest jumble,--it had neither sense nor continuity. Moors figured in it, ships, Lady Macbeth, the Major with his card-case, and the stranger who swore at me through the cab-window at Plymouth. The phrases that man used came into it." "What phrases?" "I couldn't repeat to you the most eloquent. There were milder ones, however. He called me a fair red-hotter amongst other things," said Charnock, laughing at his recollections, "and expressed a wish that I might--well, sit in that cab until I ante'd up in kingdom come." Miranda leaned back in her seat and opened and shut her fan. "He was a stranger to you, you say?" "Quite." "You are sure?" "Quite." "You had never seen him anywhere--anywhere? Think!" Charnock deliberated for a few seconds. "Never anywhere," he replied. There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Warriner gently fanned herself as she leaned back in the shadow of the alcove. "Describe him to me," she said quietly.