“Cases in which a parent has dreamt of an absent child, at the very time at which something terrible has happened to that child?” “Any amount of those.” The father’s voice had trembled with the question. Thrush put down his glass as he gave his answer, and his spectacled eyes fixed themselves in a more attentive stare. “Do you think they’re all coincidences?” demanded Mr. Upton hoarsely. “Some of them may be, but certainly not all,” was the reply. “That would be the greatest coincidence of the lot!” “I hardly like to tell you why I ask,” said Mr. Upton, much agitated; for he could be as emotional as most irascible men. “You’ve been dreaming about the boy?” “Not I; but my poor wife has; that was one reason why I daren’t tell her he had disappeared.” “Why? What was the dream?” “That she saw him—and heard a shot.” “A shot!” Thrush looked as though he had heard one himself, but only until he had time to think. “She says she did hear one,” added Mr. Upton, “and that she wasn’t dreaming at all.” “But when was this?” “Between six and seven yesterday morning.” This time Thrush did not move a muscle of his face; it only lit up like a Chinese lantern, and again he was quick to quench the inner flame; but now the coincidence was complete. Coincidences, however, had nothing to say to the A. V. M. system, neither was Eugene Thrush the man to jump to wild conclusions on the strength of one. He asked whether the boy was very fond of shooting in the holidays, as though that might have accounted for the dream, but his father was not aware that he had ever smelt powder in his life. He little dreamt what Thrush was driving at! The tone of subsequent inquiries concerning Mrs. Upton’s health (already mentioned as the great reason for keeping the affair as long as possible a secret) sounded purely compassionate to an ear unconsciously aching for compassion. “Then that accounts for it,” said Thrush, when he had heard the whole sad story. There was the faintest ring of disappointment in his tone. “What do you mean?” “That anybody as ill as that, more particularly a lady, is naturally fanciful, I’m afraid.” “Then you think it a mere delusion, after all?” “My dear Mr. Upton, it would be presumption to express an opinion either way. I only say, don’t think too much about that dream. And since you won’t keep me company in my cups, we may as well rejoin the faithful Mullins.” They ran into Mullins, as it happened, in Glasshouse Street, and Mr. Upton for one would not have recognised him as the same being. His sepulchral face was alight with news—it was the transformation of the undertaker’s mute into the wedding guest. And yet he had only one box of the d’Auvergne Cigarettes to show for his evening’s work, and that chemist had declared it was the first he had sold for weeks. Thrush ordered his man upstairs, and took his late guest’s hand as soon as ever he dared.