nd with his horror of difficulties and mysteries of all kinds, is not
to be thought of. The clergyman is a good, weak man, who knows nothing
out of the routine of his duties; and our neighbours are just the sort
of comfortable, jog-trot acquaintances whom one cannot disturb in times
of trouble and danger. What I want to know is this: ought I at once to
take such steps as I can to discover the writer of the letter? or ought
I to wait, and apply to Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow? It is a
question--perhaps a very important one--of gaining or losing a day.
Tell me what you think, Mr. Hartright. If necessity had not already
obliged me to take you into my confidence under very delicate
circumstances, even my helpless situation would, perhaps, be no excuse
for me. But as things are I cannot surely be wrong, after all that has
passed between us, in forgetting that you are a friend of only three
months' standing."

She gave me the letter. It began abruptly, without any preliminary
form of address, as follows--

"Do you believe in dreams? I hope, for your own sake, that you do. See
what Scripture says about dreams and their fulfilment (Genesis xl. 8,
xli. 25; Daniel iv. 18-25), and take the warning I send you before it
is too late.

"Last night I dreamed about you, Miss Fairlie. I dreamed that I was
standing inside the communion rails of a church--I on one side of the
altar-table, and the clergyman, with his surplice and his prayer-book,
on the other.

"After a time there walked towards us, down the aisle of the church, a
man and a woman, coming to be married. You were the woman. You looked
so pretty and innocent in your beautiful white silk dress, and your
long white lace veil, that my heart felt for you, and the tears came
into my eyes.

"They were tears of pity, young lady, that heaven blesses and instead
of falling from my eyes like the everyday tears that we all of us shed,
they turned into two rays of light which slanted nearer and nearer to
the man standing at the altar with you, till they touched his breast.
The two rays sprang ill arches like two rainbows between me and him. I
looked along them, and I saw down into his inmost heart.

"The outside of the man you were marrying was fair enough to see. He
was neither tall nor short--he was a little below the middle size. A
light, active, high-spirited man--about five-and-forty years old, to
look at. He had a pale face, and was bald over the forehea