She flung her arms over the bed, hid her face, bit, gnawed the coverlet, and wept. She wept and she remembered. Once before she had flung herself on her bed and had wept with rage and grief. But Antonio had come, and she had kissed him with treason in her heart. It was she who had made infamous this weak and loving man, the conquest, the prey, of her superior force. He had degraded himself for her, and now she was lowering him still more, suspecting that he would hesitate a single moment if she were to say to him, "I don't want all this you are giving me! Let us rise up out of the mud; let us re-make our life." "If he lies, it will be for me, because he will not wish to destroy me. Oh! he is a rotten fruit! But I--_I_ am the worm which is consuming him!" But if, after all, she were deceiving herself? If it were not true? At moments this ray of joy flashed across her mind; then all the former darkness returned. To know! to know! that was the first thing! Why cause him useless distress? The first thing was to make certain, and then----she would see! The tears did her good. They were like a summer shower, clearing and refreshing her mind. She got up, washed her eyes, sat down to read the newspaper. She had to do something. But the first words which struck her and claimed her attention were these-- "_Arrest of a foreign priest._" She read no further, for the words reminded her of something distant and oppressive, a matter now forgotten, which yet in some way belonged to the drama evolving in her mind. What was it? When? How? Here it was. The dream she had had, that night in her old home, after her running away. Shutting her eyes, she again saw Marianna's little figure running at her side along the foggy river-bank, while she told how Antonio had borrowed money from Madame "to set up a fine Apartment." Profound anguish, rage and shame goaded Regina, forced her to sob, to run, to try and escape somehow from Marianna; but Marianna still ran along by her side, telling of her encounter with the fireman. "He had become a priest; but coquettish----" She laughed, not thinking of the priest, thinking of some mysterious, fearful thing. Regina opened her eyes, passed her hands over her face, still tear-stained, and she felt her mind grow yet darker. At that moment the memory of her dream had for her a solemn signification. From the depths of the unconscious rose up clearly the anguished impression of that distant hour. What had happened then? Under the influence of what pathological phenomenon, presentiment, or suggestion, had she fallen? Perhaps the very hour of her dream had been the hour of the abominable deed. She remembered to have read instances of that sort of thing--telepathy--clairvoyance----