“I dreamed of you,” repeated Beresford, bending lower over the girl
until her fragrant breath floated up to him, and the magnetism of
her nearness enveloped him in an atmosphere of passionate bliss. “I
dreamed, little Floy, that you and I were alone together, walking in
the most beautiful rose garden in the world.”
“Oh!” cried Floy, with a delicious start, throwing up her little hands.
Beresford caught one of them in his and held it tenderly, as if it had
been a little trembling white bird, as he went on softly:
“Words are too weak to describe the beauties of that spot.”
“I can imagine it,” thought Floy, recalling her own dream of roses.
“It must have been in Italy, the sky was so deeply blue, and the roses
so grand,” resumed Beresford. “There were thickets of roses so dense
that the sun’s rays had not dried the morning dew sparkling on their
petals. There were winding walks bordered with rose-trees; there were
shady bowers wreathed with climbing roses; there were roses on the
ground, roses in your hair--white ones--and at the waist of your white
gown were pink and white ones blended.”
“Oh-h-h!” breathed Floy, lost in wonder at the similarity of their
dreams, and she listened breathlessly as he went on telling her how the
far-off sound of the sea had come to his ears, mixed with the music
that breathed of love--the same music she had heard in her own dream.
“Oh, how strange, how passing strange!” she sighed and he answered,
tenderly:
“Yes, strange, but sweet, for now I come to the best part of it. And
you must not be offended, Floy--remember, you said you would not--for
in my dream we were lovers--you and I--and as I walked, my arm was
around your slender waist, you raised your face to mine, I kissed it,
and called you my love, my bride.”
One moment of thrilling silence, in which they could almost hear each
other’s wild hearts leap with joy; then Floy cried, eagerly:
“Oh, let me finish the dream for you! Did not a terrific storm arise
and frighten me so that I cried out to you to save me? Did not a dark,
beautiful woman rush in and thrust us apart?”
“Yes, oh, yes! that was how it ended. How strange that you should guess
at so much of my dream, Floy! But that was the way of it. You clung to
me, begging me to save you, and I assured you that I would; and just
then a beautiful woman--she had the very face of Maybelle Maury--rushed
in and thrust us apart with wild, jealous threats. At that moment I
awoke in a cold perspiration, trembling with alarm, and the memory of
you rushed over me, and I thought of you alone in that old house so
horror-haunted, and your voice seemed calling for me to save you,
until I sprung up, threw on my clothes, and darted from the room,
intending to ask Maury to accompany me and take you away from that
dreadful place.”
“Yes?” breathed Floy, eagerly, as he paused.
“Well, I met Maury’s man-servant in the hall, and on asking for Otho,
was told he had gone out. The man begged me to follow and bring him
back, as he had been drinking again against his father’s commands, and
if it came to the old man’s ears there would be a terrible row. He
added that Otho had boasted he was going out to keep an engagement with
a lady; but he suspected he might be found at some gambling hell, as he
often frequented such resorts.
“‘I will bring him back,’ I assured the man; and rushed from the house,
goaded by a frantic suspicion, hurried to a livery stable through the
raging storm, secured the carriage after a long argument, and reached
Suicide Place soon after the cessation of the storm. You know all that
followed. I followed the light in the window, and secreted myself in
the shrubbery just in time to witness the entrance of Maury. I heard
all that passed between you, clambered over the sill, and collared the
wretch just in the nick of time.”
“Just in the nick of time!” echoed Floy; and she added, in a murmur, to
herself: “Oh, that blessed dream that sent him to save me!”
He caught the whisper, and repeated, joyously:
“Yes, that blessed dream, for Heaven must have sent it to my pillow,
forewarning me in dreams of your peril, that I might hasten to save
you. But, Floy--forgive me for calling you that so boldly, but it seems
_so_ natural---how strange it seems that you could follow my dream in
thoughts as you did. You must possess the gift of mind-reading.”
“No,” she answered, hesitatingly, then burst out, solemnly: “Oh, it’s
so strange I can hardly tell you, and perhaps you will not believe me,
but--I knew all your dream as soon as you began to relate it. For--this
is the truth, sir, and not a girlish jest--to-night I fell asleep on
the porch of Suicide Place before I came into the house, and dreamed
the self-same dream just as you have told it, word for word.”
She paused, awed and trembling, overcome by the strange coincidence of
her dream.
She heard St. George Beresford laugh low and joyously to himself; she
felt him crush the hand he held against his throbbing heart, then he
whispered, tenderly:
“Oh, happy, happy dream that brought us together! Let me interpret it,
darling little Floy. It means that we indeed are lovers, that Heaven
made us for each other. Do you not believe it?”