"Do you remember the day of the month and the hour?" I asked.
She mentioned the day, and she mentioned the hour. It was the day when my mother and I had visited the waterfall. It was the hour when I had seen the apparition in the summer-house writing in my book!
I stopped in irrepressible astonishment. We had walked by this time nearly as far on the way back to the city as the old Palace of Holyrood.
My companion, after a glance at me, turned and looked at the rugged old building, mellowed into quiet beauty by the lovely moonlight.
"This is my favorite walk," she said, simply, "since I have been in Edinburgh. I don"t mind the loneliness. I like the perfect tranquillity here at night." She glanced at me again. "What is the matter?" she asked. "You say nothing; you only look at me."
"I want to hear more of your dream," I said. "How did you come to be sleeping in the daytime?"
"It is not easy to say what I was doing," she replied, as we walked on again. "I was miserably anxious and ill. I felt my helpless condition keenly on that day. It was dinner-time, I remember, and I had no appet.i.te. I went upstairs (at the inn where I am staying), and lay down, quite worn out, on my bed. I don"t know whether I fainted or whether I slept; I lost all consciousness of what was going on about me, and I got some other consciousness in its place. If this was dreaming, I can only say it was the most vivid dream I ever had in my life."
"Did it begin by your seeing me?" I inquired.
"It began by my seeing your drawing-book--lying open on a table in a summer-house."
"Can you describe the summer-house as you saw it?"
She described not only the summer-house, but the view of the waterfall from the door. She knew the size, she knew the binding, of my sketch-book--locked up in my desk, at that moment, at home in Perthshire!
"And you wrote in the book," I went on. "Do you remember what you wrote?"
She looked away from me confusedly, as if she were ashamed to recall this part of her dream.
"You have mentioned it already," she said. "There is no need for me to go over the words again. Tell me one thing--when _you_ were at the summer-house, did you wait a little on the path to the door before you went in?"
I _had_ waited, surprised by my first view of the woman writing in my book. Having answered her to this effect, I asked what she had done or dreamed of doing at the later moment when I entered the summer-house.
"I did the strangest things," she said, in low, wondering tones. "If you had been my brother, I could hardly have treated you more familiarly.
I beckoned to you to come to me. I even laid my hand on your bosom. I spoke to you as I might have spoken to my oldest and dearest friend. I said, "Remember me. Come to me." Oh, I was so ashamed of myself when I came to my senses again, and recollected it. Was there ever such familiarity--even in a dream--between a woman and a man whom she had only once seen, and then as a perfect stranger?"
"Did you notice how long it was," I asked, "from the time when you lay down on the bed to the time when you found yourself awake again?"
"I think I can tell you," she replied. "It was the dinner-time of the house (as I said just now) when I went upstairs. Not long after I had come to myself I heard a church clock strike the hour. Reckoning from one time to the other, it must have been quite three hours from the time when I first lay down to the time when I got up again."
Was the clew to the mysterious disappearance of the writing to be found here?
Looking back by the light of later discoveries, I am inclined to think that it was. In three hours the lines traced by the apparition of her had vanished. In three hours she had come to herself, and had felt ashamed of the familiar manner in which she had communicated with me in her sleeping state. While she had trusted me in the trance--trusted me because her spirit was then free to recognize my spirit--the writing had remained on the page. When her waking will counteracted the influence of her sleeping will, the writing disappeared. Is this the explanation? If it is not, where is the explanation to be found?
We walked on until we reached that part of the Canongate street in which she lodged. We stopped at the door.
CHAPTER XI. THE LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.
I LOOKED at the house. It was an inn, of no great size, but of respectable appearance. If I was to be of any use to her that night, the time had come to speak of other subjects than the subject of dreams.
"After all that you have told me," I said, "I will not ask you to admit me any further into your confidence until we meet again. Only let me hear how I can relieve your most pressing anxieties. What are your plans? Can I do anything to help them before you go to rest to-night?"
She thanked me warmly, and hesitated, looking up the street and down the street in evident embarra.s.sment what to say next.
"Do you propose staying in Edinburgh?" I asked.
"Oh no! I don"t wish to remain in Scotland. I want to go much further away. I think I should do better in London; at some respectable milliner"s, if I could be properly recommended. I am quick at my needle, and I understand cutting out. Or I could keep accounts, if--if anybody would trust me."
She stopped, and looked at me doubtingly, as if she felt far from sure, poor soul, of winning my confidence to begin with. I acted on that hint, with the headlong impetuosity of a man who was in love.
"I can give you exactly the recommendation you want," I said, "whenever you like. Now, if you would prefer it."
Her charming features brightened with pleasure. "Oh, you are indeed a friend to me!" she said, impulsively. Her face clouded again--she saw my proposal in a new light. "Have I any right," she asked, sadly, "to accept what you offer me?"
"Let me give you the letter," I answered, "and you can decide for yourself whether you will use it or not."
I put her arm again in mine, and entered the inn.
She shrunk back in alarm. What would the landlady think if she saw her lodger enter the house at night in company with a stranger, and that stranger a gentleman? The landlady appeared as she made the objection.
Reckless what I said or what I did, I introduced myself as her relative, and asked to be shown into a quiet room in which I could write a letter.
After one sharp glance at me, the landlady appeared to be satisfied that she was dealing with a gentleman. She led the way into a sort of parlor behind the "bar," placed writing materials on the table, looked at my companion as only one woman can look at another under certain circ.u.mstances, and left us by ourselves.
It was the first time I had ever been in a room with her alone.
The embarra.s.sing sense of her position had heightened her color and brightened her eyes. She stood, leaning one hand on the table, confused and irresolute, her firm and supple figure falling into an att.i.tude of unsought grace which it was literally a luxury to look at. I said nothing; my eyes confessed my admiration; the writing materials lay untouched before me on the table. How long the silence might have lasted I cannot say. She abruptly broke it. Her instinct warned her that silence might have its dangers, in our position. She turned to me with an effort; she said, uneasily, "I don"t think you ought to write your letter to-night, sir."
"Why not?"
"You know nothing of me. Surely you ought not to recommend a person who is a stranger to you? And I am worse than a stranger. I am a miserable wretch who has tried to commit a great sin--I have tried to destroy myself. Perhaps the misery I was in might be some excuse for me, if you knew it. You ought to know it. But it"s so late to-night, and I am so sadly tired--and there are some things, sir, which it is not easy for a woman to speak of in the presence of a man."
Her head sunk on her bosom; her delicate lips trembled a little; she said no more. The way to rea.s.sure and console her lay plainly enough before me, if I chose to take it. Without stopping to think, I took it.
Reminding her that she had herself proposed writing to me when we met that evening, I suggested that she should wait to tell the sad story of her troubles until it was convenient to her to send me the narrative in the form of a letter. "In the mean time," I added, "I have the most perfect confidence in you; and I beg as a favor that you will let me put it to the proof. I can introduce you to a dressmaker in London who is at the head of a large establishment, and I will do it before I leave you to-night."
I dipped my pen in the ink as I said the words. Let me confess frankly the lengths to which my infatuation led me. The dressmaker to whom I had alluded had been my mother"s maid in f ormer years, and had been established in business with money lent by my late step-father, Mr.
Germaine. I used both their names without scruple; and I wrote my recommendation in terms which the best of living women and the ablest of existing dressmakers could never have hoped to merit. Will anybody find excuses for me? Those rare persons who have been in love, and who have not completely forgotten it yet, may perhaps find excuses for me. It matters little; I don"t deserve them.
I handed her the open letter to read.
She blushed delightfully; she cast one tenderly grateful look at me, which I remembered but too well for many and many an after-day. The next moment, to my astonishment, this changeable creature changed again. Some forgotten consideration seemed to have occurred to her. She turned pale; the soft lines of pleasure in her face hardened, little by little; she regarded me with the saddest look of confusion and distress. Putting the letter down before me on the table, she said, timidly:
"Would you mind adding a postscript, sir?"
I suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as I could, and took up the pen again.
"Would you please say," she went on, "that I am only to be taken on trial, at first? I am not to be engaged for more"--her voice sunk lower and lower, so that I could barely hear the next words--"for more than three months, certain."
It was not in human nature--perhaps I ought to say it was not in the nature of a man who was in my situation--to refrain from showing some curiosity, on being asked to supplement a letter of recommendation by such a postscript as this.
"Have you some other employment in prospect?" I asked.
"None," she answered, with her head down, and her eyes avoiding mine.
An unworthy doubt of her--the mean offspring of jealousy--found its way into my mind.