ten something, as usual. The
Dream is wrong this time, thank God--utterly wrong! In the vision
you saw, the statue was lying in fragments on the floor, and you were
stooping over them with a troubled and an angry mind. There stands the
statue safe and sound! and you haven't the vestige of an angry feeling
in your mind, have you?" He seized Allan impulsively by the hand. At
the same moment the consciousness came to him that he was speaking and
acting as earnestly as if he still believed in the Dream. The color
rushed back over his face, and he turned away in confused silence.

"What did I tell you?" said Allan, laughing, a little uneasily. "That
night on the Wreck is hanging on your mind as heavily as ever."

"Nothing hangs heavy on me," retorted Midwinter, with a sudden outburst
of impatience, "but the knapsack on my back, and the time I'm wasting
here. I'll go out, and see if it's likely to clear up."

"You'll come back?" interposed Allan.

Midwinter opened the French window, and stepped out into the garden.

"Yes," he said, answering with all his former gentleness of manner;
"I'll come back in a fortnight. Good-by, Allan; and good luck with Miss
Gwilt!"

He pushed the window to, and was away across the garden before his
friend could open it again and follow him.

Allan rose, and took one step into the garden; then checked himself at
the window, and returned to his chair. He knew Midwinter well enough to
feel the total uselessness of attempting to follow him or to call him
back. He was gone, and for two weeks to come there was no hope of seeing
him again. An hour or more passed, the rain still fell, and the
sky still threatened. A heavier and heavier sense of loneliness and
despondency--the sense of all others which his previous life had least
fitted him to understand and endure--possessed itself of Allan's mind.
In sheer horror of his own uninhabitably solitary house, he rang for his
hat and umbrella, and resolved to take refuge in the major's cottage.

"I might have gone a little way with him," thought Allan, his mind still
running on Midwinter as he put on his hat. "I should like to have seen
the dear old fellow fairly started on his journey."

He took his umbrella. If he had noticed the face of the servant who gave
it to him, he might possibly have asked some questions, and might have
heard some news to interest him in his present frame of mind. As it was,
he went out without looking at the man, and withou