“Perfectly; since I only learned as much myself about an hour ago.”
“How singular!”
“Come, do not torture my curiosity further. Let us have your dream.”
“It was very short. I dreamed that I was sitting here musing and thinking over the lives and fortunes of some of those who once dwelt within these walls, and comparing their destiny with that of their descendants, only admitted, as it were, on sufferance, when suddenly a door opened slowly there,—there, in the very midst of that wall,—and I could see down into the crypt, and the chapel beyond it. On the altar there were candles lighted, and I thought the figure of a man crossed and recrossed below the steps, as if settling and arranging the books and cushions; and, at last, he turned round, and I perceived that he carried in his hands a small and strongly clasped box, and, as he came towards me, he seemed to hold this out for me to take; but, as I did not move or stir, he laid it down within the doorway, and, as he did so, the wall gradually closed up again, and no vestige of the door could be seen. Nay, so perfectly unshaken did all appear that I remember remarking a cobweb that stretched from the frame of a picture, and hung over the spot where the door seemed to be; and there,” cried she, starting up,—“there, Mr. Linton, as I live, there is the cobweb!”
“Which, without doubt, you observed yesterday,” said Linton, “and in your sleep the vision of our neglect was renewed.”
“No, no; I never saw it before. I am confident that I never noticed it yesterday. I am sorry I revealed my dream to you,” said she, perceiving that, in spite of all his tact, incredulity had lent a look of pitying compassion to his features.
“On the contrary, I beg of you to believe in all my interest for your recital; nay, I'll prove it too.”
“How so?” said she, eagerly.
“Simply enough. I 'll give orders at once to have a door made here, and then we shall see if the view you describe of the crypt and the chapel can be seen from this point.”
“Why don't you add, and of the figure with the casket, too?” said she, smiling; “for I see you regard them all as alike veracious.”