Crazed with jealousy and rage, blind and bestial with all the
elemental passions of insulted manhood, I entered the house and
sprang up the stairs to the door of my wife's chamber. It was
closed, but having tampered with its lock also, I easily entered and
despite the black darkness soon stood by the side of her bed. My
groping hands told me that although disarranged it was unoccupied.

"She is below," I thought, "and terrified by my entrance has evaded
me in the darkness of the hall."

With the purpose of seeking her I turned to leave the room, but took
a wrong direction--the right one! My foot struck her, cowering in a
corner of the room. Instantly my hands were at her throat, stifling
a shriek, my knees were upon her struggling body; and there in the
darkness, without a word of accusation or reproach, I strangled her
till she died!

There ends the dream. I have related it in the past tense, but the
present would be the fitter form, for again and again the somber
tragedy reenacts itself in my consciousness--over and over I lay the
plan, I suffer the confirmation, I redress the wrong. Then all is
blank; and afterward the rains beat against the grimy window-panes,
or the snows fall upon my scant attire, the wheels rattle in the
squalid streets where my life lies in poverty and mean employment.
If there is ever sunshine I do not recall it; if there are birds they
do not sing.

There is another dream, another vision of the night. I stand among
the shadows in a moonlit road. I am aware of another presence, but