excuse will be less questioned and seem more natural. But
still--still--let us hope still."

"Have you one ground for hope?"

"Perhaps so; but you will think it very frail and fallacious."

"Name it, and let me judge."

"One night--in which you were on a visit to Derval Court--"

"Ay, that night."

"Lilian woke me by a loud cry (she sleeps in the next room to me, and the
door was left open); I hastened to her bedside in alarm; she was asleep,
but appeared extremely agitated and convulsed. She kept calling on your
name in a tone of passionate fondness, but as if in great terror. She
cried, 'Do not go, Allen--do not go--you know not what you brave!--what
you do!' Then she rose in her bed, clasping her hands. Her face was set
and rigid; I tried to awake her, but could not. After a little time, she
breathed a deep sigh, and murmured, 'Allen, Allen! dear love! did you not
hear, did you not see me? What could thus baffle matter and traverse
space but love and soul? Can you still doubt me, Allen?--doubt that I
love you now, shall love you evermore?--yonder, yonder, as here below?'
She then sank back on her pillow, weeping, and then I woke her."

"And what did she say on waking?"

"She did not remember what she had dreamed, except that she had passed
through some great terror; but added, with a vague smile, 'It is over, and