I could answer only by a caress.
“I had a strange dream the other night. I thought I was sitting on a stone in the dark. And I heard your voice calling me. And it went all round about me, and came nearer, and went farther off, but I could not move to go to you. I tried to answer you, but I could only make a queer sound, not like my own voice at all.”
“I dreamed it too, Alice.”
“The same dream?”
“Yes, the very same.”
“I am so glad. But I didn’t like the dream. Duncan, my head feels so strange sometimes. And I am so sleepy. Duncan, dearest—am I dreaming now? Oh! tell me that I am awake and that I hold you; for tomorrow, when I wake, I shall fancy that I have lost you. They’ve spoiled my poor brain, somehow. I am all right, I know, but I cannot get at it. The red is withered, somehow.”
“You are wide awake, my Alice. I know all about it. I will help you to understand it all, only you must do exactly as I tell you.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Then go to bed now, and sleep as much as you can; else I will not let you come to me at night.”
“That would be too cruel, when it is all I have.”
“Then go, dearest, and sleep.”
“I will.”
She rose and went. I, too, went, making all close behind me. The moon was going down. Her light looked to me strange, and almost malignant. I feared that when she came to the full she would hurt my darling’s brain, and I longed to climb the sky, and cut her in pieces. Was I too going mad? I needed rest, that was all.
Next morning, I called again upon Mrs. Blakesley, to inquire after Lady Alice, anxious to know how yesterday had passed.
“Just the same,” answered the old lady. “You need not look for any change. Yesterday I did see her smile once, though.”
And was that nothing?
In her case there was a reversal of the usual facts of nature—(I say facts, not laws): the dreams of most people are more or less insane; those of Lady Alice were sound; thus, with her, restoring the balance of sane life. That smile was the sign of the dream-life beginning to leaven the waking and false life.
“Have you heard of young Lord Hilton’s marriage?” asked Mrs. Blakesley.
“I have only heard some rumours about it,” I answered. “Who is the new countess?”
“The daughter of a rich merchant somewhere. They say she isn’t the best of tempers. They’re coming here in about a month. I am just terrified to think how it may fare with my lamb now. They won’t let her go wandering about wherever she pleases, I doubt. And if they shut her up, she will die.”
I vowed inwardly that she should be free, if I carried her off, madness and all.
XXV
New Entrenchments
But this way of breaking into the house every night did not afford me the facility I wished. For I wanted to see Lady Alice during the day, or at least in the evening before she went to sleep; as otherwise I could not thoroughly judge of her condition. So I got Wood to pack up a small stock of provisions for me in his haversack, which I took with me; and when I entered the house that night, I bolted the door of the court behind me, and made all fast.
I waited till the usual time for her appearance had passed; and, always apprehensive now, as was very natural, I had begun to grow uneasy, when I heard her voice, as I had heard it once before, singing. Fearful of disturbing her, I listened for a moment. Whether the song was her own or not, I cannot be certain. When I questioned her afterwards, she knew nothing about it. It was this—
Days of old,
Ye are not dead, though gone from me;
Ye are not cold,
But like the summer-birds gone o’er the sea.
The sun brings back the swallows fast,
O’er the sea:
When thou comest at the last,
The days of old come back to me.
She ceased singing. Still she did not enter. I went into the closet, and found that the door was bolted. When I opened it, she entered, as usual; and, when she came to herself, seemed still better than before.
“Duncan,” she said, “I don’t know how it is, but I believe I must have forgotten everything I ever knew. I feel as if I had. I don’t think I can even read. Will you teach me my letters?”
She had a book in her hand. I hailed this as another sign that her waking and sleeping thoughts bordered on each other; for she must have taken the book during her somnambulic condition. I did as she desired. She seemed to know nothing till I told her. But the moment I told her anything, she knew it perfectly. Before she left me that night she was reading tolerably, with many pauses of laughter that she should ever have forgotten how. The moment she shared the light of my mind, all was plain; where that had not shone, all was dark. The fact was, she was living still in the shadow of that shock which her nervous constitution had received from our discovery and my ejection.
As she was leaving me, I said,
“Shall you be in the haunted room at sunset tomorrow, Alice?”
“Of course I shall,” she answered.
“You will find me there then,” I rejoined—“that is, if you think there is no danger of being seen.”
“Not the least,” she answered. “No one follows me there; not even Mrs. Blakesley, good soul! They are all afraid, as usual.”
“And you won’t be frightened to see me there?”
“Frightened? No. Why? Oh! you think me queer too, do you?”
She looked
