ppen?" surveying me attentively, with his clear,
glittering eyes.

"I was harassed by frightful dreams, and only awoke from one fit of
nightmare to fall into a worse."

"Are you often troubled with bad dreams?" said he, without removing his
powerful gaze from my pale face.

"Not often with such as disturbed me last night."

I detected my uncle's drift in using this species of cross-questioning,
and I determined to increase his uneasiness without betraying my own.

"I wish, uncle, I had never seen that old woman who visited the office
yesterday; she haunted me all night like my evil genius. Sir Matthew
Hale might have condemned her for a witch, with a safe conscience."

"She is not a very flattering specimen of the fair sex," said my uncle,
affecting a laugh, "but ugly as she now is, I remember her both young
and handsome. What was the purport of your dream?"

"That I should like to know. The Josephs and Daniels of these
degenerate modern days, are makers of money, not interpreters of
dreams. But, I hope you don't imagine that I place the least importance
on such things. My dream was simply this:

"I dreamed that that ugly old woman, whom you call Dinah North, came to
my bedside with an intent to murder me." I paused, and fixed my eyes
upon Mr. Moncton's face. The glitter of his bright orbs almost dazzled
me. I thought, however, that his cheek paled for a moment, and that I
could perceive a slight twitching movement about the muscles of the
mouth.

"Well," said he, quite calmly, "and what then?"

"For a long time I resisted her efforts to stab me with a long knife,
and I received several deep wounds in my hands, in endeavouring to ward
off her home-thrusts; till, faint with loss of blood, I gave up the
contest, and called aloud for aid. I heard steps in the passage--some
one opened the door--it was you, Sir, and I begged you to save my life,
and unloosen the fiend's grasp from my throat, but instead of the
assistance I expected, you seized the knife from the old woman's hand,
and with a derisive laugh, plunged it to the hilt in my heart. I awoke
with a scream of agony, and with the perspiration streaming from every
part of my body."

The dream was no invention of the moment, but had actually occurred,
after Dinah North and Mr. Moncton had left my chamber. I wished to see
what impression it would make upon him.

He leaned back in his chair with his eyes still fixed on my face. "It
was strange, very strange-