Imagine it.'

'But it might, you know,' suggested the other with a smile--'might
have been sheer indifference.'

'"Nicholas Sabathier, Stranger to this parish"--no, no,' said
Lawford, his heart beating as if it would choke him, 'I don't
fancy it was indifference.'

It was almost too dark now to distinguish the stranger's features
but there seemed a faint suggestion of irony in his voice. 'And
how do you suppose your angry naughty child would set about it?
It's narrow quarters; how would he begin?'

Lawford sat quite still. 'You say--I hope I am not detaining you
--you say you have come here, sat here often, on this very seat;
have you ever had--have you ever fallen asleep here?'

'Why do you ask?' inquired the other curiously.

'I was only wondering,' said Lawford. He was cold and shivering.
He felt instinctively it was madness to sit on here in the thin
gliding mist that had gathered in swathes above the grass, milk-
pale in the rising moon. The stranger turned away from him.

'"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come must give us
pause,"' he said slowly, with a little satirical catch on the
last word. 'What did you dream?'

Lawford glanced helplessly about him. The moon cast lean grey