in identifying with yourself. You will be
associated in the future with a statue broken in your friend's presence,
with a long window looking out on a garden, and with a shower of rain
pattering against the glass? Do you say that?"

"I say that."

"And so again, I presume, with the next vision? You and the mysterious
woman will be brought together in some place now unknown, and will
present to Mr. Armadale some liquid yet unnamed, which will turn him
faint?--Do you seriously tell me you believe this?"

"I seriously tell you I believe it."

"And, according to your view, these fulfillments of the dream will
mark the progress of certain coming events, in which Mr. Armadale's
happiness, or Mr. Armadale's safety, will be dangerously involved?"

"That is my firm conviction."

The doctor rose, laid aside his moral dissecting-knife, considered for a
moment, and took it up again.

"One last question," he said. "Have you any reason to give for going out
of your way to adopt such a mystical view as this, when an unanswerably
rational explanation of the dream lies straight before you?"

"No reason," replied Midwinter, "that I can give, either to you or to my
friend."

The doctor looked at his watch with the air of a man who is suddenly
reminded that he has been wasting his time.

"We have no common ground to start from," he said; "and if we talk till
doomsday, we should not agree. Excuse my leaving you rather abruptly.
It is later than I thought; and my morning's batch of sick people
are waiting for me in the surgery. I have convinced _your_ mind, Mr.
Armadale, at any rate; so the time we have given to this discussion has
not been altogether lost. Pray stop here, and smoke your cigar. I shall
be at your service again in less than an hour." He nodded cordially to
Allan, bowed formally to Midwinter, and quitted the room.

As soon as the doctor's back was turned, Allan left his place at the
table, and appealed to his friend, with that irresistible heartiness of
manner which had always found its way to Midwinter's sympathies, from
the first day when they met at the Somersetshire inn.

"Now the sparring-match between you and the doctor is over," said Allan,
"I have got two words to say on my side. Will you do something for my
sake which you won't do for your own?"

Midwinter's face brightened instantly. "I will do anything you ask me,"
he said.

"Very well. Will you let the subject of the dream drop out of our talk
al