a host of vividly-pictured images began to succeed each
other with frightful rapidity across the _tabula rasa_ of her mind.

It seemed to her in that quiet hour she saw her son as he walked dawn
the dark road to Dunmuir. The moon was just rising; the trees on either
hand lifted their gaunt branches to a wild and starless sky. Whose face,
white as that of a corpse, gleamed from between those leafless stems?
Hugo's, surely. And what did he hold in his hand? Was it a knife on
which a faint ray of moonlight was palely reflected? He was watching for
that solitary traveller who came with heedless step and hanging head
upon the lonely road. In another moment the spring would be taken, the
thrust made, and a dying man's blood would well out upon the stones.
Could she do nothing? "Brian! Brian!" she cried--or strove to cry; but
the shriek seemed to be stifled before it left her lips. "Brian!" Three
times she tried to call his name, with an agony of effort which,
perhaps, brought her back to consciousness--for the dream, if dream it
was, vanished, and she awoke.

Awoke--to the remembrance of what she had heard, concerning Hugo's
attempt on Dino's life, and the fact that she had sent her son out of
the house to walk to Dunmuir alone. She was not so blind to Hugo's
inherited proclivities to passion and revenge as she pretended to be.
She knew that he was a dangerous enemy, and that Dino had incurred his
hatred. What might not happen on that lonely road between Netherglen and
Dunmuir if Dino (Brian, she called him) traversed it unwarned, alone,
unarmed? She must send servants after him at once, to guard him as he
went upon his way. She heard her maid in the next room. Should she call
Janet, or should she ring the bell?

What a curiously-helpless sensation had come over her! She did not seem
able to rouse herself. She could not lift her hand. She was tired; that
was it. She would call Janet. "Janet!" But Janet did not hear.

How was it that she could not speak? Her faculties were as clear as
usual: her memory was as strong as ever it had been. She knew exactly
what she wanted: she could arrange in her own mind the sentences that
she wished to say. But, try as she would, she could not articulate a
word, she could not raise a finger, or make a sign. And again the
terrible dread of what would happen to the son she loved took possession
of her mind.

Oh, if only he would return, she would let him have his way. What did it
matter th