"My poor wife! poor Rachael! You have been dreaming."
"No; it was not all dreaming, Norton. I did see—no matter what; but it was something that terrified me out of all the joy and glory of this night. I must have been fearfully worn out to sleep after that; but the lamp, which I left behind me, is burning there, and my hands were in the cold water, trying to wash themselves, when you awoke me. I must have been in that fearful picture gallery again."
"You have courage to go there at all, Rachael!"
"I got there without knowing it. The rooms have been so changed I lost my way, and took the wrong corridor, and there I saw—"
"Her picture."
"Was it that? Oh! was it only that?"
"It is there—her picture—life size; and so like that I would not look on it for the world."
"But what carried me there, Norton? On this night, too, when I have been honored, as your wife should be for the first time! when her mother has taken me by the hand and lifted the cloud from my name! Ah, Norton! Norton! it was glory to me when I saw your eyes kindle, and answer back to mine, as the noblest of the land crowded round to do me homage. Then I knew that the old love was perfect yet. Oh, Destiny is cruel, that it will not let me have one perfect day!"
"After all, it was but a picture. Why allow it to distress you so?"
Lord Hope took her hands in his. She did not shrink from his touch now, as she had in her abnormal sleep; but he felt her palms growing warm, and saw the light coming back to her eyes, where it had seemed frozen at first.