IX

If you have ever felt the heartache, you will know what I suffered in

secret when my mother took my hand, and said, "I am sorry, Francis, that

your night's rest has been disturbed through _me_." I gave her the

medicine; and I waited by her till the pains abated. My aunt Chance went

back to her bed; and my mother and I were left alone. I noticed that her

writing-desk, moved from its customary place, was on the bed by her side.

She saw me looking at it. "This is your birthday, Francis," she said.

"Have you anything to tell me?" I had so completely forgotten my Dream,

that I had no notion of what was passing in her mind when she said those

words. For a moment there was a guilty fear in me that she suspected

something. I turned away my face, and said, "No, mother; I have nothing to

tell." She signed to me to stoop down over the pillow and kiss her. "God

bless you, my love!" she said; "and many happy returns of the day." She

patted my hand, and closed her weary eyes, and, little by little, fell off

peaceably into sleep.

I stole downstairs again. I think the good influence of my mother must

have followed me down. At any rate, this is true: I stopped with my hand

on the closed kitchen door, and said to myself: "Suppose I leave the

house, and leave the village, without seeing her or speaking to her more?"

Should I really have fled from temptation in this way, if I had been left

to myself to decide? Who can tell? As things were, I was not left to

decide. While my doubt was in my mind, she heard me, and opened the

kitchen door. My eyes and her eyes met. That ended it.

We were together, unsuspected and undisturbed, for the next two hours.

Time enough for her to reveal the secret of her wasted life. Time enough

for her to take possession of me as her own, to do with me as she liked.

It is needless to dwell here on the misfortunes which had brought her

low; they are misfortunes too common to interest anybody.

Her name was Alicia Warlock. She had been born and bred a lady. She had

lost her station, her character, and her friends. Virtue shuddered at the

sight of her; and Vice had got her for the rest of her days. Shocking and

common, as I told you. It made no difference to _me_. I have said it

already--I say it again--I was a man bewitched. Is there anything so very

wonderful in that? Just remember who I was. Among the honest women in my

own station in life, where could I have found the like of _her_? Could

_they_ walk as she walked? and look as she looked? When _they_ gave me a

kiss, did their lips linger over it as hers did? Had _they_ her skin, her

laugh, her foot, her hand, her touch? _She_ never had a speck of dirt on

her: I tell you her flesh was a perfume. When she embraced me, her arms

folded round me like the wings of angels; and her smile covered me softly

with its light like the sun in heaven. I leave you to laugh at me, or to

cry over me, just as your temper may incline. I am not trying to excuse

myself--I am trying to explain. You are gentle-folks; what dazzled and

maddened _me_, is everyday experience to _you_. Fallen or not, angel or

devil, it came to this--she was a lady; and I was a groom.

Before the house was astir, I got her away (by the workmen's train) to a

large manufacturing town in our parts.

Here--with my savings in money to help her--she could get her outfit of

decent clothes and her lodging among strangers who asked no questions so

long as they were paid. Here--now on one pretense and now on another--I

could visit her, and we could both plan together what our future lives

were to be. I need not tell you that I stood pledged to make her my wife.

A man in my station always marries a woman of her sort.

Do you wonder if I was happy at this time? I should have been perfectly

happy but for one little drawback. It was this: I was never quite at my

ease in the presence of my promised wife.

I don't mean that I was shy with her, or suspicious of her, or ashamed of

her. The uneasiness I am speaking of was caused by a faint doubt in my

mind whether I had not seen her somewhere, before the morning when we met

at the doctor's house. Over and over again, I found myself wondering

whether her face did not remind me of some other face--_what_ other I

never could tell. This strange feeling, this one question that could never

be answered, vexed me to a degree that you would hardly credit. It came

between us at the strangest times--oftenest, however, at night, when the

candles were lit. You have known what it is to try and remember a

forgotten name--and to fail, search as you may, to find it in your mind.

That was my case. I failed to find my lost face, just as you failed to

find your lost name.

In three weeks we had talked matters over, and had arranged how I was to

make a clean breast of it at home. By Alicia's advice, I was to describe

her as having been one of my fellow servants during the time I was

employed under my kind master and mistress in London. There was no fear

now of my mother taking any harm from the shock of a great surprise. Her

health had improved during the three weeks' interval. On the first evening

when she was able to take her old place at tea time, I summoned my

courage, and told her I was going to be married. The poor soul flung her

arms round my neck, and burst out crying for joy. "Oh, Francis!" she says,

"I am so glad you will have somebody to comfort you and care for you when

I am gone!" As for my aunt Chance, you can anticipate what _she_ did,

without being told. Ah, me! If there had really been any prophetic virtue

in the cards, what a terrible warning they might have given us that night!

It was arranged that I was to bring my promised wife to dinner at the

cottage on the next day.

X

I own I was proud of Alicia when I led her into our little parlor at the

appointed time. She had never, to my mind, looked so beautiful as she

looked that day. I never noticed any other woman's dress--I noticed hers

as carefully as if I had been a woman myself! She wore a black silk gown,

with plain collar and cuffs, and a modest lavender-colored bonnet, with

one white rose in it placed at the side. My mother, dressed in her Sunday

best, rose up, all in a flutter, to welcome her daughter-in-law that was

to be. She walked forward a few steps, half smiling, half in tears--she

looked Alicia full in the face--and suddenly stood still. Her cheeks

turned white in an instant; her eyes stared in horror; her hands dropped

helplessly at her sides. She staggered back, and fell into the arms of my

aunt, standing behind her. It was no swoon--she kept her senses. Her eyes

turned slowly from Alicia to me. "Francis," she said, "does that woman's

face remind you of nothing?".

Before I could answer, she pointed to her writing-desk on the table at the

fireside. "Bring it!" she cried, "bring it!".

At the same moment I felt Alicia's hand on my shoulder, and saw Alicia's

face red with anger--and no wonder!

"What does this mean?" she asked. "Does your mother want to insult me?".

I said a few words to quiet her; what they were I don't remember--I was so

confused and astonished at the time. Before I had done, I heard my mother

behind me.

My aunt had fetched her desk. She had opened it; she had taken a paper

from it. Step by step, helping herself along by the wall, she came nearer

and nearer, with the paper in her hand. She looked at the paper--she

looked in Alicia's face--she lifted the long, loose sleeve of her gown,

and examined her hand and arm. I saw fear suddenly take the place of anger

in Alicia's eyes. She shook herself free of my mother's grasp. "Mad!" she

said to herself, "and Francis never told me!" With those words she ran out

of the room.

I was hastening out after her, when my mother signed to me to stop. She

read the words written on the paper. While they fell slowly, one by one,

from her lips, she pointed toward the open door.

"Light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a

gold-yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little,

lady's hand, with a rosy-red look about the finger nails. The Dream Woman,

Francis! The Dream Woman!"

Something darkened the parlor window as those words were spoken. I looked

sidelong at the shadow. Alicia Warlock had come back! She was peering in

at us over the low window blind. There was the fatal face which had first

looked at me in the bedroom of the lonely inn. There, resting on the

window blind, was the lovely little hand which had held the murderous

knife. I _had_ seen her before we met in the village. The Dream Woman! The

Dream Woman!