"If you wanted your breakfast as much as I want mine, you'd let Pike
alone," retorted the clerk.

"I thought he was mixed up in some business with Lord Hartledon. I don't
know what it was, but the dream was full of horror. It seemed that Lord
Hartledon was dead or dying; whether he'd been killed or not, I can't
say; but an awful dread was upon me of seeing him dead. A voice called
out, 'Don't let him come to Calne!' and in the fright I awoke. I can't
remember what part Pike played in the dream," she continued, "only the
impression remained that he was in it."

"Perhaps he killed Lord Hartledon?" cried Gum, mockingly.

"No; not in the dream. Pike did not seem to be mixed up in it for ill.
The ill was all on Lord Hartledon; but it was not Pike brought it upon
him. Who it was, I couldn't see; but it was not Pike."

Clerk Gum looked down at his wife in scornful pity. He wondered
sometimes, in his phlegmatic reasoning, why women were created such
fools.

"Look here, Mrs. G. I thought those dreams of yours were pretty nearly
dreamed out--there have been enough of 'em. How any woman, short of a
born idiot, can stand there and confess herself so frightened by a dream
as to be unable to get up and go about her duties, is beyond me."

"But, Gum, you don't let me finish. I woke up with the horror, I tell
you--"

"What horror?" interrupted the clerk, angrily. "What did it consist of?