Chapter 27 - Page 2

summer-house by the waterfall!" she exclaimed. "Was it in Scotland once more?"

"No. Further away than Scotland--as far away as Shetland."

"Tell me about it! Pray, pray tell me about it!"

I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently with maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. Concealing from her the very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to suppose that the master of the house was the one person whom I had found to receive me during my sojourn under Mr. Dunross's roof.

"That is strange!" she exclaimed, after she had heard me attentively to the end.

"What is strange?" I asked.

She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave eyes.

"I hardly like speaking of it," she said. "And yet I ought to have no concealments in such a matter from you. I understand everything that you have told me--with one exception. It seems strange to me that you should only have had one old man for your companion while you were at the house in Shetland."

"What other companion did you expect to hear of?" I inquired.

"I expected," she answered, "to hear of a lady in the house."

I cannot positively say that the reply took me by surprise: it forced me to reflect before I spoke again. I knew, by my past experience, that she must have seen me, in my absence from her, while I was spiritually present to her mind in a trance or dream. Had she also seen the daily companion of my life in Shetland--Miss Dunross?

I put the question in a form which left me free to decide whether I should take her unreservedly into my confidence or not.

"Am I right," I began, "in supposing that you dreamed of me in Shetland, as you once before dreamed of me while I was at my house in Perthshire?"

"Yes," she answered. "It was at the close of evening, this time. I fell asleep, or became insensible--I cannot say which. And I saw you again, in a vision or a dream."

"Where did you see me?"

"I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river--just as I met you on the evening when you saved my life. After a while the stream and the landscape about it faded, and you faded with them, into darkness. I waited a little, and the darkness melted away slowly. I stood, as it seemed to me, in a circle of starry lights; fronting a window, with a lake behind me, and before me a darkened room. And I looked into the room, and the starry light showed you to me again."

"When did this happen? Do you remember the date?"

"I remember that it was at the beginning of the month. The misfortunes which have since brought me so low had not then fallen on me; and yet, as I stood looking at you, I had the strangest prevision of calamity