I am confined with some invisible Terror
which drives me out of my bed: as I rush into the passage the rope
trips me up, and I fall forwards but am saved from injury by my
mother's arms: she catches me in the dark and says something about
my darling little son. And she remonstrates with Fillet, who is
standing by that dreadful bedroom door, till he merges into Stanley
listening shame-facedly to my mother's silvery, chiding laugh and
assuring her that the inquest was conducted in a strictly impartial
and disinterested way. He changes into old Doctor Chapman, who tells
her that Freedham died early this morning. For everything changes in
the dream except one thing: which is that there is a head aching
somewhere; now it is my own, now someone else's. I draw my mother
along a passage to a window and explain that the pencil-mark on the
glass is the register of my height. I put my back against the wall
to let her see that I can just reach the mark, when lo! it is a
great distance above me. I get on the cold stone window-sill that I
may reach it, and would fall a thousand feet, only something in my
breast goes "click"--and the dream was gone. With my return to
consciousness came the knowledge that the headache had been my own
throughout.

But it was terribly cold--and what a draught! Perhaps it was because
I was lying so dreadfully straight, whereas I generally lay curled
up. I wanted to bring my knees towards my chest, but couldn't move
my legs. How cold my chest was! Why had the bedclothes fallen away
and left it exposed to this horrible draught? I would have liked to
pull them right over my head that I might get warm again, but I was
too tired to make the effort. At last, however, the cold was more
than I could bear. So I put out both hands to pull up the
blankets--but could find none anywhere. God! I wasn't in bed at all,
but was standing!

The horror of that moment! A wild heart beat lawlessly at my side.
One more touch of terror, and it would rebel in utter panic. Why was
the dormitory so dark? Why had the little night-lamp gone out? And
the wooden floors were stone-cold like the window-sill in my dream.
I couldn't see if my bed were close to me or far away because of the
impenetrable darkness; but I was so very, very tired, and my eyes
were so uncomfortably warm with interrupted sleep that I must try to
feel my way. I put out my hand and touched a _padlock_. Like a
flash, it came with all its terror upon me: I was not