--

"But Mr. Neville?"

No answer was made her; but the group opened in solemn silence, and
there lay George Neville on the snow, stark and stiff, with blood
issuing from his temple, and trickling along the snow.

She saw distinctly all his well-known features: but they were pinched
and sharpened now. And his dark olive skin was turned to bluish white.
It was his corpse. And now her horse thrust out his nose and snorted
like a demon. She looked down, and, ah! the blood was running at her
preternaturally fast along the snow. She screamed, her horse reared
high, and she was falling on the blood-stained snow. She awoke,
screaming; and the sunlight seemed to rush in at the window.

Her joy that it was only a dream overpowered every other feeling at
first. She kneeled and thanked God for that.

The next thing was, she thought it might be a revelation of what had
actually occurred.

But this chilling fear did not affect her long. Nothing could shake her
conviction that a duel was on foot,--and, indeed, the intelligent of her
sex do sometimes put this and that together, and spring to a just, but
obvious inference, in away that looks to a slower and safer reasoner
like divination,--but then she knew that yesterday evening both parties
were alive. Coupling this with Griffith's broad hint that after the
funeral might be too late to make his will, she felt sure that it was
this very day the combatants were to meet. Yes, and this very morning:
for she knew that gentlemen always fought in the morning.

If her dream was false as to the past, it might be true as to what was
at hand. Was it not a supernatural warning, sent to her in mercy? The
history of her Church abounded in such dreams and visions; and, indeed,
the time and place she lived in were rife with stories of the
kind,--one, in particular, of recent date.

This thought took hold of her, and grew on her, till it overpowered even
the diffidence of her sex; and then up started her individual character;
and now nothing could hold her. For, languid and dreamy in the common
things of life, this Catharine Peyton was one of those who rise into
rare ardor and activity in such great crises as seem to benumb the
habitually brisk, and they turn tame and passive.

She had seen at a glance that Houseman was too slow and apathetic for
such an emergency. She resolved to act herself. She washed her face and
neck and arms and hands in cold water, and was refreshed and
invigorated.