So thinking, and so resolving, I fell at last from waking dreams to sleeping ones, hoping dimly, as I slipped over the edge of realities, that they might be of Karine Cunningham. But they were not of her. Hardly had slumber got its hold upon me, when I saw myself by the river, looking down into a swiftly rushing tide. It seemed to be somewhere in the country, though I had little thought for my surroundings; and I was conscious that I was watching anxiously for the appearance of some object, whose nature I did not accurately know. It had been daylight in my vision at first--a cold, grey, wintry daylight--but suddenly night fell, with the rapidity that all changes come and go in dreamland, and the only light was a spot of phosphorescent radiance that lay just under the surface of the water, floating gradually down towards me. I knew, in my sleep, that my eyes were destined to behold some sight of horror, yet I was bound, in a species of frozen fascination, to the spot where I stood, forced to wait for the oncoming of the light and its revelation of mystery. Slowly it was borne along with the tide, until, having reached a bend in the river opposite the spot where I was standing, it ceased to move. I stooped down and saw that the pale light shone forth from a great white diamond on the finger of a dead man's hand. The body was faintly and darkly outlined; even the floating arm might also have been a floating mass of blackened river weed; but the hand was white as alabaster, and as I bent over it, staring down, one of the fingers moved and beckoned. Then I woke with a loud cry--"Harvey Farnham!" I had gone through a good many dangers in my roving life, and had passed through many a queer adventure, believing that I could still boast unshaken nerves. Neither was I used to dreaming, and the hours of sleep were usually for me a long and peaceful interval of complete unconsciousness. Now, however, my forehead was damp with a cold sweat, and I could hardly shake off the horror of the vision. It was ridiculous, I said to myself, and yet, even with my eyes open, I could see the white awfulness of that dead finger, as it beckoned me, shining palely in the light of the diamond ring. Exactly why I had shouted the name of Harvey Farnham as I waked, I could not understand, unless--with the odd "hang togetherativeness" of dreams--it was because I had happened to notice during the evening at the theatre that he still wore on the last finger of his left hand a very remarkable ring, which he had also worn, and of which he had told me the history, when we had met four years previously in America. I had thought it perhaps the very finest diamond I had ever seen in the possession of a private person, and he had mentioned that it had been taken from the first mine of which he had ever been the owner. He had had it for some years, and, having grown stouter meanwhile, the gold setting had cut rather deeply into the flesh of his finger.