now to think of making
atonement. I could only risk the worst, and make sure of her till the
funeral was over. I locked her into her bedroom.

When I came back, after laying my mother in the grave, I found her sitting
by the bedside, very much altered in look and bearing, with a bundle on
her lap. She faced me quietly; she spoke with a curious stillness in her
voice--strangely and unnaturally composed in look and manner.

"No man has ever struck me yet," she said. "My husband shall have no
second opportunity. Set the door open, and let me go."

She passed me, and left the room. I saw her walk away up the street. Was
she gone for good?

All that night I watched and waited. No footstep came near the house. The
next night, overcome with fatigue, I lay down on the bed in my clothes,
with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning. My
slumber was not disturbed. The third night, the fourth, the fifth, the
sixth, passed, and nothing happened. I lay down on the seventh night,
still suspicious of something happening; still in my clothes; still with
the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning.

My rest was disturbed. I awoke twice, without any sensation of uneasiness.
The third time, that horrid shivering of the night at the lonely inn, that
awful sinking pain at the heart, came back again, and roused me in an
instant. My eyes turned to the left-hand side of the bed. And there stood,
looking at me--

The Dream Woman again? No! My wife. The living woman, with the face of the
Dream--in the attitude of the Dream--the fair arm up; the knife clasped in
the delicate white hand.

I sprang upon her on the instant; but not quickly enough to stop her from
hiding the knife. Without a word from me, without a cry from her, I
pinioned her in a chair. With one hand I felt up her sleeve; and there,
where the Dream Woman had hidden the knife, my wife had hidden it--the
knife with the buckhorn handle, that looked like new.

What I felt when I made that discovery I could not realize at the time,
and I can't describe now. I took one steady look at her with the knife in
my hand. "You meant to kill me?" I said.

"Yes," she answered; "I meant to kill you." She crossed her arms over her
bosom, and stared me coolly in the face. "I shall do it yet," she said.
"With that knife."

I don't know what possessed me--I swear to you I am no coward; and yet I
acted like a coward. The horrors got hold of me. I couldn'