winter held up his band for silence. He spoke with his wild eyes
riveted on Allan's face, with his white lips close at Allan's ear.

"You remember how I _looked_," he answered, in a whisper. "Do you
remember what I _said_ when you and the doctor were talking of the
Dream?"

"I have forgotten the Dream," said Allan.

As he made that answer, Midwinter took his hand, and led him round the
last turn in the path.

"Do you remember it now?" he asked, and pointed to the Mere.

The sun was sinking in the cloudless westward heaven. The waters of
the Mere lay beneath, tinged red by the dying light. The open country
stretched away, darkening drearily already on the right hand and the
left. And on the near margin of the pool, where all had been solitude
before, there now stood, fronting the sunset, the figure of a woman.

The two Armadales stood together in silence, and looked at the lonely
figure and the dreary view.

Midwinter was the first to speak.

"Your own eyes have seen it," he said. "Now look at our own words."

He opened the narrative of the Dream, and held it under Allan's eyes.
His finger pointed to the lines which recorded the first Vision; his
voice, sinking lower and lower, repeated the words:

"The sense came to me of being left alone in the darkness.

"I waited.

"The darkness opened, and showed me the vision--as in a picture--of a
broad, lonely pool, surrounded by open ground. Above the further margin
of the pool I saw the cloudless western sky, red with the light of
sunset.

"On the near margin of the pool there stood the Shadow of a Woman."

He ceased, and let the hand which held the manuscript drop to his side.
The other hand pointed to the lonely figure, standing with its back
turned on them, fronting the setting sun.

"There," he said, "stands the living Woman, in the Shadow's place! There
speaks the first of the dream warnings to you and to me! Let the future
time find us still together, and the second figure that stands in the
Shadow's place will be Mine."

Even Allan was silenced by the terrible certainty of conviction with
which he spoke.

In the pause that followed, the figure at the pool moved, and walked
slowly away round the margin of the shore. Allan stepped out beyond the
last of the trees, and gained a wider view of the open ground. The first
object that met his eyes was the pony-chaise from Thorpe Ambrose.

He turned back to Midwinter with a laugh of relief. "What nonsense