“I said I should frighten you!” she said, sinking back and looking at him concerned.
He was pale to lividity, but, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, he once more folded his arms, and said, coolly:
“Go on. Did the gentleman of your dream take your advice?”
“You must not mock or sneer,” she said, somewhat defiantly. “Monsieur, I do not think you should sneer at my suffering! I have been in torment with that dream; when I woke up I have felt that I was wicked, just as if it were the truth. I have cried and groaned. Oh! I have prayed to die!”
“Sneer? I wish I could sneer!” said Hugh, bitterly.
She fixed her eyes upon him, seriously, earnestly; then went on:
“After I had that dream many times each year, I see that room plainer. It is a room” (she stopped and looked round) “something like this. Books everywhere, on the walls like those, on the table. But while I dream that I ask that man—I beg him, indeed, more and more each time—to kill himself, never once in all those years did he move or look at me; never once did I see his face!”
Hugh could not speak; he was dumb with horror. He could not doubt that this dream of Mercedes’ was a dream of the terrible crisis in his life; of that hour when Lilia had, dying, tempted him to commit self-murder, and he had been saved from the crime by the accidental appearance of Mrs. Mervyn. But why should this Spanish girl have dreamt of him throughout her young life, far away in a foreign land? Could it be—but of course it must be—a coincidence? The thought of a coincidence was a relief.
“Dreams are strange things,” he stammered. “Go on, you interest me much!” (Interest him—good God!)
“Then,” she said, “came the strangest thing of all. When I was away in the country I dreamed that—once more. But it was more like real life than before; the room, oh! I saw it plain, even as I see this now. But the man—this time he looked at me—and—it was you!”