There was one dream which occurred to her almost nightly, so full of horror that she came to be afraid of going to bed, knowing what she was to suffer. In this dream she found herself a prisoner at the Bar in a dingy Law Court. She was on her trial as being an accomplice in an awful crime. She looked around; and on the faces of the judge, and lawyers, and jury, and witnesses, and lookers on, she saw only an intense loathing expressed. No sympathy, no pity, hate alone was felt for the abominable murderer of babies. Susan Riley, too, was standing in the witness-box, her eyes glittering with malice, giving Queen's evidence, nay, more, bearing false witness against her, weaving tissues of lies around her that there was no disproving, cunningly making her to appear more detestable a wretch than any criminal that had ever been tried before in that accursed place through all its long annals of crime. And her husband was there also, pale, haggard, his hair turned grey with woe, his eyes cast down, not daring to raise them towards his guilty wife. Oh, most horrible thing of all! even he, he whom she loved, worshipped, turning away from her, disbelieving, despising, loathing her! And then she would wake up with a start, with cries and tears, to find her husband by her side, soothing her with loving words and fondling her as she lay sobbing on his breast. She knew that she had an implacable enemy. She could not tell in what way Susan would work her harm, but she was only too certain that the malicious woman would do so to the utmost of her ability. The shadow darkened around Mary as she waited for the blow to strike, not knowing at what moment it might come. Yet how to prevent it! What to do! In a fortnight after the receipt of the letter, a great change had come over her. All the innocent gladness had forsaken her. She wandered about the house a pale and listless being, taking no interest in the pursuits she once loved. Her great delight had been to take the green-house completely under her care; she had been very proud of it, and would allow no one else to interfere in its management. But now it made the doctor's heart bleed to see its neglected condition, its melancholy show of withered leaves that lay unswept, and faded blossoms on the untended plants, a sure sad sign to him of the darkness that was coming to his young wife's mind. It was in vain that he tried to discover the cause of this change: his questions could elicit nothing from her. One evening towards the end of this miserable fortnight, they were sitting together in the drawing-room. He drew his chair close to hers, and after some conversation in which he did his best to coax her with affectionate words into her happy confiding mood of old, he said: