"'Those vows were all forgotten,
The ring asunder broke.'
I can hear it now, Lance. It seems to me the wind is repeating it."
"It is only your fancy, my darling," he said.
But she went on:
"'I would the grave would hide me,
For there alone is peace.'
Ah, Lance, my love—Lance, will it happen to either of us to find peace in the grave?"
"No, we shall find peace in life first," he said.
She laid her hand on his arm.
"Lance," she said, "I had a terrible dream last night. I could not sleep for many hours. When at last my eyes closed I found myself by the old mill stream. I thought that I had been driven there by some pain too great for words, and I flung myself into the stream. Oh, Lance, my love—Lance, I felt myself drowning. I felt my body floating, then sinking. My hair caught in the bending branches of a tree. The water filled my eyes and my ears. I died. In my sleep I went through all the pain of death. My last thought was of you. 'Lance,' I cried, in death as in life, 'Lance, come back to me in death!' It was a horrible dream, was it not? Do you think it will ever come true?"
"No," he replied; but his handsome face had grown paler, and the shadows of deep trouble lay in his eyes.