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 every-day 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 in 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 flve-and-forty years old, to look at.
He had a pale face, and was bald over the forehead,
but had dark hair on the rest of his head.
His beard was shaven on his chin, but was let
to grow, of a fine rich brown, on his cheeks and
his upper lip. His eyes were brown too, and
very bright; his nose straight and handsome
and delicate enough to have done for a woman's.
His hands the same. He was troubled from
time to time with a dry hacking cough; and
when he put up his white right hand to his
mouth, he showed the red scar of an old
wound across the back of it. Have I dreamt of
the right man? You know best, Miss Fairlie;
and you can say if I was deceived or not. Read,
next, what I saw beneath the outside—I entreat
you, read, and profit.

"I looked along the two rays of light; and I
saw down into his inmost heart. It was black
as night; and on it was written, in the red
naming letters which are the handwriting of the
fallen angel: 'Without pity and without remorse.
He has strewn with misery the paths of others,
and he will live to strew with misery the path of
this woman by his side.' I read that; and then
the rays of light shifted and pointed over his
shoulder; and there, behind him, stood a fiend,
laughing. And the rays of light shifted once
more, and pointed over your shoulder; and
there, behind you, stood an angel weeping. And
the rays of light shifted for the third time, and
pointed straight between you and that man.
They widened and widened, thrusting you both
asunder, one from the other. And the clergyman
looked for the marriage-service in vain: it
was gone out of the book, and he shut up the
leaves, and put it from him in despair. And I
woke with my eyes full of tears and my heart
beating—for I believe in dreams.

"Believe, too, Miss Fairlie—I beg of you,
for your own sake, believe as I do. Joseph and
Daniel, and others in Scripture, believed in
dreams. Inquire into the past life of that man
with the scar on his hand, before you say the
words that make you his miserable wife. I don't
give you this warning on my account, but on
yours. I have an interest in your well-being
that will live as long as I draw breath. Your
mother's daughter has a tender place in my
heart—for your mother was my first, my best,
my only friend."

There, the extraordinary letter ended, without
signature of any sort.

The handwriting afforded no prospect of a
clue. It was traced on ruled lines, in the
cramped, conventional, copybook character,
technically termed "small hand." It was
feeble and faint, and defaced by blots, but had
otherwise nothing to distinguish it.

"That is not an illiterate letter," said Miss
Halcombe, "and, at the same time, it is surely
too incoherent to be the letter of an educated
person in the higher ranks of life. The reference
to the bridal dress and veil, and other little
expressions, seem to point to it as the production
of a woman. What do you think, Mr.
Hartright?"

"I think so too. It seems to me to be not
only the letter of a woman, but of a woman
whose mind must be——"

"Deranged?" suggested Miss Halcombe. "It
struck me in that light, too."

I did not answer. While I was speaking,
my eyes rested on the last sentence of the letter:
"Your mother's daughter has a tender place in
my heart—for your mother was my first, my
best, iny only friend." Those words and the
doubt which had just escaped me as to the sanity
of the writer of the letter, acting together
on my mind, suggested an idea, which I was
literally afraid to express openly, or even to
encourage secretly. I began to doubt whether
my own faculties were not in danger of losing
their balance. It seemed almost like a
monomania to be tracing back everything strange
that happened, everything unexpected that was
said, always to the same hidden source and the
same sinister influence. I resolved, this time, in
defence of my own courage and my own sense,
to come to no decision that plain fact did not
warrant, and to turn my back resolutely on
everything that tempted me in the shape of
surmise.

"If we have any chance of tracing the person
who has written this," I said, returning the
letter to Miss Halcombe, "there can be no harm