"You have strange notions, Miriam; you talk like an old French philosopher."
"I never knew there was such a thing—a French sophist I am afraid you mean. No, I am not a sophist, Evelyn; any thing else than that! I wish sometimes I did not see so clearly. I love, I idolize the truth alone!"
She colored—sighed. God knows I was not thinking of her at that moment, or speaking with that reference, however I may have had reason to do so.
Is it not strange that our dreams often present to us, in our own despite, the vivid, photographic pictures struck by sleep from the dim, unconscious negative of our waking judgment, which we refuse to recognize as verities in the light of our open-eyed, daytime responsibility? I, who had declared myself no sophist, knew later that I had deceived my own heart, which spoke out so truthfully in dreams of sleep, and refused to be silenced in the dead hour of night, however I might stifle its suggestions by day.
In one of these suggestive, or rather reflected, visions, I saw Evelyn groping through darkness to the side-gate which gave into the grounds of Mr. Bainrothe from our own, made years before by my father's permission for the convenience of his friend; the night was a dark and stormy one, yet she went forth alone, or seemed to, in my vision, to seek a man she detested, and with him connive the destruction of the fortunes of the child of her benefactress, whose confidence she abused.
Then I saw them returning together, through that pantry-door which she had left unbolted, though locked when she went out by another egress, and which the man, who returned with her, readily unlocked with the duplicate key he carried, not by my father's permission. This last I knew.
Now the scene was changed to the dining-room. Again I saw the mirror swing back on its invisible and noiseless hinges, and now the glare of a shaded lamp fell in bands of light across its surface. But I was inside this time, by the glamour of my dream, and I saw them emptying the open chest painfully, laboriously, stealthily; stopping now and then to listen, to breathe, again working silently, industriously, at their vocation of theft and crime!
At last all seemed accomplished. A large, covered basket was partially loaded with the contents—heavy as lead—and, between them, they bore it out into the storm and darkness again, and I heard the sound of the spade and mattock at work on the graveled road.
Presently Evelyn came in again. Her air was wild and frightened; her trembling hands were stained with mud, seen by the light of the lantern she bore, and which she again hung in its accustomed place, stealing quietly away into the darkened hall, to grope her way up-stairs. All this while the farce of sending for Dr. Craig was being enacted, and Morton was out on his fruitless mission in the rain!
Again it was morning, and I saw them together in the library, while I still slept, consulting, planning, plotting, writing, erasing, whispering; soon to separate, however, this time. Their arrangements being completed without restraint, for again the old man was absent, doing the duties of another, who, knowing not the motive of such request or bribe, was content to work the will of a conspirator, and pass the day in idleness at home, for the sake of a purse of gold. Here ended my clairvoyance, if such it was.