come nearer my idea of real story-writing." Before starting to write
the present story, he outlined briefly how he intended to develop it:
Murray, the criminal accused and convicted of the brutal murder of his
sweetheart--a murder prompted by jealous rage--at first faces the death
penalty, calm, and, to all outward appearances, indifferent to his
fate. As he nears the electric chair he is overcome by a revulsion of
feeling. He is left dazed, stupefied, stunned. The entire scene in the
death-chamber--the witnesses, the spectators, the preparations for
execution--become unreal to him. The thought flashes through his brain
that a terrible mistake is being made. Why is he being strapped to the
chair? What has he done? What crime has he committed? In the few moments
while the straps are being adjusted a vision comes to him. He dreams a
dream. He sees a little country cottage, bright, sun-lit, nestling in
a bower of flowers. A woman is there, and a little child. He speaks
with them and finds that they are his wife, his child--and the cottage
their home. So, after all, it is a mistake. Some one has frightfully,
irretrievably blundered. The accusation, the trial, the conviction, the
sentence to death in the electric chair--all a dream. He takes his wife
in his arms and kisses the child. Yes, here is happiness. It was a
dream. Then--at a sign from the prison warden the fatal current is
turned on.

Murray had dreamed the wrong dream.



[Illustration: The "Hill City Quartet," to which O. Henry
belonged as a young man in Austin]