“This is all very fanciful,” I remarked, laughing in the vain endeavor to throw off the superstitious horror his words had awakened.
He bent his head in assent. “I know it,” said he. “I am practical myself in broad daylight, and recognize the flimsiness of an accusation based upon a poor, hardworking secretary’s dream, as plainly as you do. This is the reason I desired to keep from speaking at all; but, Mr. Raymond,” and his long, thin hand fell upon my arm with a nervous intensity which gave me almost the sensation of an electrical shock, “if the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth is ever brought to confess his deed, mark my words, he will prove to be the man of my dream.”
I drew a long breath. For a moment his belief was mine; and a mingled sensation of relief and exquisite pain swept over me as I thought of the possibility of Eleanore being exonerated from crime only to be plunged into fresh humiliation and deeper abysses of suffering.
“He stalks the streets in freedom now,” the secretary went on, as if to himself; “even dares to enter the house he has so wofully desecrated; but justice is justice and, sooner or later, something will transpire which will prove to you that a premonition so wonderful as that I received had its significance; that the voice calling ‘Trueman, Trueman,’ was something more than the empty utterances of an excited brain; that it was Justice itself, calling attention to the guilty.”
I looked at him in wonder. Did he know that the officers of justice were already upon the track of this same Clavering? I judged not from his look, but felt an inclination to make an effort and see.
“You speak with strange conviction,” I said; “but in all probability you are doomed to be disappointed. So far as we know, Mr. Clavering is a respectable man.”
He lifted his hat from the table. “I do not propose to denounce him; I do not even propose to speak his name again. I am not a fool, Mr. Raymond. I have spoken thus plainly to you only in explanation of last night’s most unfortunate betrayal; and while I trust you will regard what I have told you as confidential, I also hope you will give me credit for behaving, on the whole, as well as could be expected under the circumstances.” And he held out his hand.
“Certainly,” I replied as I took it. Then, with a sudden impulse to test the accuracy of this story of his, inquired if he had any means of verifying his statement of having had this dream at the time spoken of: that is, before the murder and not afterwards.
“No, sir; I know myself that I had it the night previous to that of Mr. Leavenworth’s death; but I cannot prove the fact.”
“Did not speak of it next morning to any one?”