man and a woman can suffer who love and are held apart. And you looked
as you do now, yet utterly different. You looked years older, and you
were dressed so strangely. I do not know how I looked, but I know how
I felt. I felt that I had made up my mind to commit a deadly sin, and
that I gloried in it. I had suffered because to love you was a sin;
but I only loved you the more for that reason. Then you slowly drew
me further into the room and pressed me more closely in your arms and
kissed me again, and then--I--oh--I do not know--it is all so vague I
don't know what it meant--but it seemed as if the very foundations of
my life were being swept away. And yet--oh, I cannot explain! I do not
know, myself." And she would have thrown herself headlong on the sofa
had not Dartmouth sprang forward and caught her.

"There, never mind," he said, quickly. "Let that go. It is of no
consequence. A dream like that must necessarily end in a climax of
incoherence and excitement."

He drew her down on the sofa, and for a moment said nothing further.
He had to acknowledge that she had deepened the mystery, and given no
key. A silence fell, and neither moved. Suddenly she raised her head.
"What was your dream?" she demanded.

"The same. I don't pretend to explain it. And I shall not insult your
understanding by inventing weak excuses. If it means anything we will
give the problem no rest until we have solved it. If we cannot solve
it, then we are justified in coming to the conclusion that there is
nothing in it. But I believe we shall get to the bottom of it yet."

"Perhaps," she said, wearily; "I do not know. I only feel that I shall
never be myself again, but must go through life with that woman's