letter?' I asked.

"He struck his hand passionately on the open manuscript. 'If Mr. Brook
had lived to see what we have seen to-night he would have felt what I
feel, he would have said what I say!' His voice sank mysteriously, and
his great black eyes glittered at me as he made that answer. 'Thrice
the Shadows of the Vision warned Allan in his sleep,' he went on; 'and
thrice those Shadows have been embodied in the after-time by You and by
Me! You, and no other, stood in the Woman's place at the pool. I, and no
other, stood in the Man's place at the window. And you and I together,
when the last Vision showed the Shadows together, stand in the Man's
place and the Woman's place still! For _this_, the miserable day dawned
when you and I first met. For _this_, your influence drew me to you,
when my better angel warned me to fly the sight of your face. There is a
curse on our lives! there is a fatality in our footsteps! Allan's future
depends on his separation from us at once and forever. Drive him
from the place we live in, and the air we breathe. Force him among
strangers--the worst and wickedest of them will be more harmless to him
than we are! Let his yacht sail, though he goes on his knees to ask us,
without you and without me; and let him know how I loved him in another
world than this, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary
are at rest!'

"His grief conquered him; his voice broke into a sob when he spoke those
last words. He took the Narrative of the Dream from the table, and left
me as abruptly as he had come in.

"As I heard his door locked between us, my mind went back to what he
had said to me about myself. In remembering 'the miserable day' when we
first saw each other, and 'the better angel' that had warned him to
'fly the sight of my face,' I forgot all else. It doesn't matter what I
felt--I wouldn't own it, even if I had a friend to speak to. Who cares
for the misery of such a woman as I am? who believes in it? Besides, he
spoke under the influence of a mad superstition that has got possession
of him again. There is every excuse for _him_--there is no excuse for
_me_. If I can't help being fond of him through it all, I must take the
consequences and suffer. I deserve to suffer; I deserve neither love nor
pity from anybody.--Good heavens, what a fool I am! And how unnatural
all this would be, if it was written in a book!

"It has struck one. I can hear Midwinter still, pacing to and fro in his