"And what do you think it was, if not a dream?" I asked, smiling. "Nothing less," she replied "than a glimpse into that world so zealously guarded from our mortal eyes as to make us doubt of its existence, or, at least, to hold it as something so ethereal and visionary that we tremble even to speculate on it; but which, nevertheless, exists, has existed, and will exist to all eternity in form as palpable as the earth we this day inhabit." I mused a little, then said, "Dreams are often very vivid; I know that by experience, but upon waking I have always been able to account for them in some way or other." "Don't call this a dream of mine, doctor," she said. "In everything it is most unlike the dreams of your experience. Those you allude to are vivid only for one night, and disperse into air on waking. Such is not the case with my dreams. The dream of each night to me is the continuation of the dream of the preceding night, and this has been regularly going on for more than a year, each dream being crowded with a series of events such as would be sufficient to fill up a lifetime; and so vivid, indeed, is the colouring of everything in these visions, that I no more doubt in a double existence than that I am talking to you at the present moment. In awaking, too, I find, that instead of vanishing like an ordinary dream, I bear ever afterwards the strongest recollection of everything that has happened during my period of sleep." "Indeed!" I exclaimed. "It is very strange. I am just attending a young man in London who shares your complaint. The case is a rare one; I never came across one before at all like it. The coincidence about the whole affair is so strange, too. His name happens to be Charles, and whilst talking in his sleep as they tell me you do, I have heard him mention the name Edith. Your name, is it not?" "'Tis he! 'Tis he!" exclaimed my patient, enthusiastically, throwing up her arms and clasping her hands above her head. "I knew it, I knew it! But tell me more about him, doctor! I did not see him last night, and I was so unhappy. The night before he appeared to me less distinct than he had ever done before. Oh, doctor," she cried, in an agonising tone, "you are _curing_ him, you are _curing_ him!" much in the same way as she might have called out, "You are _killing_ him!" "Yes, I hope to some day. There is no great harm in that, I suppose?" I remarked. "Oh, yes, indeed!" she cried; "you are imprisoning his spirit within his body, and I shall never see him again." "Well," I thought to myself, "this is about the oddest courtship _I_ ever heard of; but," I continued, aloud, "supposing I could cure you both; then, afterwards, you might meet in the flesh; and how much better that would be. You would preserve your health and----"