talk."

With those parting words, Mr. MacGlue left us to ourselves.

"Is it really true?" I said to my mother. "Has she left the inn,
without waiting to see me?"

"Nobody could stop her, George," my mother answered. "The lady
left the inn this morning by the coach for Edinburgh."

I was bitterly disappointed. Yes: "bitterly" is the word--though
she _was_ a stranger to me.

"Did you see her yourself?" I asked.

"I saw her for a few minutes, my dear, on my way up to your
room."

"What did she say?"

"She begged me to make her excuses to you. She said, 'Tell Mr.
Germaine that my situation is dreadful; no human creature can
help me. I must go away. My old life is as much at an end as if
your son had left me to drown in the river. I must find a new
life for myself, in a new place. Ask Mr. Germaine to forgive me
for going away without thanking him. I daren't wait! I may be
followed and found out. There is a person whom I am determined
never to see again--never! never! never! Good-by; and try to
forgive me!' She hid her face in her hands, and said no more. I
tried to win her confidence; it was not to be done; I was
compelled to leave her. There is some dreadful calamity, George,
in that wretched woman's life. And such an interesting creature,
too! It was impossible not to pity her, whether she deserved it
or not. Everything about her is a mystery, my dear. She speaks
English without the slightest foreign accent, and yet she has a
foreign name."

"Did she give you her name?"

"No, and I was afraid to ask her to give it. But the landlady
here is not a very scrupulous person. She told me she looked at
the poor creature's linen while it was drying by the fire. The
name marked on it was, 'Van Brandt.' "

"Van Brandt?" I repeated. "That sounds like a Dutch name. And yet
you say she spoke like an Englishwoman. Perhaps she was born in
England."

"Or perhaps she may be married," suggested my mother; "and Van
Brandt may be the name of her husband."

The idea of her being a married woman had something in it
repellent to me. I wished my mother had not thought of that last
suggestion. I refused to receive it. I persisted in my own belief
that the stranger was a single woman. In that character, I could
indulge myself in the luxury of thinking of her; I could consider
the chances of my being able to trace this charming fugitive, who
had taken so strong a hold on my interest--whose desperate
attempt at suicide had so nearly cost me my own life.

If she had gone as far as Edinburgh (which she would surely do,
being bent on avoiding discovery), the prospect of finding her
again--in that great city. and in my present weak state of
health--looked doubtful indeed. Still, there was an underlying
hopefulness in me which kept my spirits from being seriously
depressed. I felt a purely imaginary (perhaps I ought to say, a
purely superstitious) conviction that we who had nearly died
together, we who had been brought to life together, were surely
destined to be involved in some future joys or sorrows common to
us both. "I fancy I shall see her again," was my last thought
before my weakness overpowered me, and I sunk into a peaceful
sleep.

That night I was removed from the inn to my own room at home; and
that night I saw her again in a dream.

The image of her was as vividly impressed on me as the far
different image of the child Mary, when I used to see it in the
days of old. The dream-figure of the woman was robed as I had
seen it robed on the bridge. She wore the same broad-brimmed
garden-hat of straw. She looked at me as she had looked when I
approached her in the dim evening light. After a little her face
brightened with a divinely beautiful smile; and she whispered in
my ear, "Friend, do you know me?"

I knew her, most assuredly; and yet it was with an
incomprehensible after-feeling of doubt. Recognizing her in my
dream as the stranger who had so warmly interested me, I was,
nevertheless, dissatisfied with myself, as if it had not been the
right recognition. I awoke with this idea; and I slept no more
that night.

In three days' time I was strong enough to go out driving with my
mother, in the comfortable, old-fashioned, open carriage which
had once belonged to Mr. Germaine.

On the fourth day we arranged to make an excursion to a little
waterfall in our neighborhood. My mother had a great admiration
of the place, and had often expressed a wish to possess some
memorial of it. I resolved to take my sketch-book: with me, on


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