ort of resurrection dream of which the events of the two
days before supplied the bones and skeleton outline. As in all very vivid
and dreadful dreams the whole vision was connected and coherent, there
were no ludicrous and inconsequent interludes, none of those breakings
of one thread and hurried seizures of another, which though one is
dreaming very distinctly, supply some vague mental comfort, since even to
the sleeper they are reminders that his experiences are not solid but
mere phantasies woven by imperfect consciousness and incomplete control
of thought. It was not thus that Morris dreamed; his dream was of the
solid and sober texture of life.
He was driving in his motor, he thought, down the road from the house at
Falmer Park, which through the gate of a disused lodge joins the main
road, that leads from Falmer Station to Brighton. He had just heard from
Sir Richard's own lips who it was who had slandered and blackened him,
but, in his dream, he was conscious of no anger. The case had been
referred to some higher power, some august court of supreme authority,
which would certainly use its own instruments for its own vengeance. He
felt he was concerned in the affair no longer; he was but a spectator of
what would be. And, in obedience to some inward dictation, he drove his
motor on to the grass behind the lodge, so that it was concealed from the
road outside, and walked along the inside of the park-palings, which ran
parallel with it.
The afternoon, it seemed, was very dark, though the atmosphere was
extraordinarily clear, and after walking along the springy grass inside
the railings for some three hundred yards, where was the southeastern
corner of the park enclosure, he stopped at the angle and standing on
tip-toe peered over them, for they were nearly six feet high, and looked
into the road below. It ran straight as a billiard-cue just here, and was
visible for a long distance, but at the corner, just outside the
palings, the footpath over the downs to Brighton left the road, and
struck upward. On the other side of the road ran the railway, and in this
clear dark air, Morris could see with great distinctness Falmer Station
some four hundred yards away, along a stretch of the line on the other
side of it.
As he looked he saw a puff of steam rise against the woods beyond the
station, and before long a train, going Brightonward, clashed into the
station. Only one passenger got out, and he came out of the sta
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