person left up in the house. He was understood to be in his study,
preparing an address to the electors, based on instructions sent from
London by his father. He was actually occupied in the music-room--now
that there was nobody to discover him--playing exercises softly on his
beloved violin.

At the trainer's cottage a trifling incident occured, that night, which
afforded materials for a note in Perry's professional diary.

Geoffrey had sustained the later trial of walking for a given time and
distance, at his full speed, without showing any of those symptoms of
exhaustion which had followed the more serious experiment of running,
to which he had been subjected earlier in the day. Perry, honestly
bent--though he had privately hedged his own bets--on doing his best
to bring his man in good order to the post on the day of the race, had
forbidden Geoffrey to pay his evening visit to the house, and had sent
him to bed earlier than usual. The trainer was alone, looking over
his own written rules, and considering what modifications he should
introduce into the diet and exercises of the next day, when he was
startled by a sound of groaning from the bedroom in which his patron lay
asleep.

He went in, and found Geoffrey rolling to and fro on the pillow, with
his face contorted, with his hands clenched, and with the perspiration
standing thick on his forehead--suffering evidently under the nervous
oppression produced by the phantom-terrors of a dream.

Perry spoke to him, and pulled him up in the bed. He woke with a scream.
He stared at his trainer in vacant terror, and spoke to his trainer in
wild words. "What are your horrid eyes looking at over my shoulder?"
he cried out. "Go to the devil--and take your infernal slate with you!"
Perry spoke to him once more. "You've been dreaming of somebody, Mr.
Delamayn. What's to do about a slate?" Geoffrey looked eagerly round the
room, and heaved a heavy breath of relief. "I could have sworn she was
staring at me over the dwarf pear-trees," he said. "All right, I know
where I am now." Perry (attributing the dream to nothing more important
than a passing indigestion) administered some brandy and water, and left
him to drop off again to sleep. He fretfully forbade the extinguishing
of the light. "Afraid of the dark?" said Perry, with a laugh. No. He was
afraid of dreaming again of the dumb cook at Windygates House.

SEVENTH SCENE.--HAM FARM.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH.