The young man hesitated. "What do you want me to do?" "You are to come with me to Mrs. Haveril's rooms; she will receive you; she will make a communication to you. Whatever she says you are to receive with courtesy--with courtesy, mind. That done, you may return, and everything will go on as usual. You can then forget what you heard. Are you ready? Very well." "If that cad, the fiddler, is there----" "Hark ye, Sir Humphrey, if you behave or speak like a cub and a cur, I throw you over. By the Lord! I will have no mercy upon you. I will tell you myself what it all means. Now!" * * * * * Molly waited, sitting beside Alice, who lay with closed eyes. Perhaps she slept. Presently John Haveril came home. Molly told him what had happened. "Ay, ay," he said. "Let him come. Let Alice have her say. They've made a cur of him between them. Let him come." He sat down beside his wife, and whispered words of consolation and of soothing. They would go home again--out of the atmosphere of deception. They would be happy once more in their own home on the Pacific slope. "John," said Alice, "it was good of you to bring me over on the strength of a dream, and a promise of a dream--to give over all your work----" "Nay, nay, lass. What is work compared with thee?" "I shall see my son again. I have prayed for that. I did not pray, John--I could not--for his love--that was gone. Yet I hoped. Now I must be satisfied only to take his hands in mine." "We will go home again--we will go home again." "My dream said nothing about going home again." She was silent for a while. "John," she said, "what was it you were going to tell Molly and Dick?" They were all three standing over her. "Why," said John, "Alice had a fancy--because she loves you both--to see you join hands--so." Alice laid her thin hands across their joined hands, and her lips moved. "And I was to tell you both that I would not give you a single dollar out of all the pile. You are happier without, she says. And so do I," he added. It was a strange betrothal, with tears in the eyes of both. At that moment arrived the doctor, with Humphrey. The young man looked dark and lowering; his cheek was flushed. He glanced round the room, bowed low to Alice, recognized Molly by a cold inclination, Mr. Haveril by a nod, and Dick by a blank stare, which did not recognize even his existence--the frequent employment of this mode of salutation had made him greatly beloved by all outsiders. "Ah," thought Dick, "if you knew what I've got in my pocket, you'd change that look." "Mrs. Haveril," said Sir Robert, "I have brought you Sir Humphrey Woodroffe, at your request. I believe you have something to say to him." "Molly dear, give Sir Humphrey a chair near me--so. I want to tell you, Sir Humphrey, of a very strange dream, if I may call it--a hallucination." "You may, madam," said the doctor, for the young man sat down in silence.