She went out of the room.
The thought crossed her mind, as it had often done before, that she had made a frightful mistake in marrying Horace Williams.
“I was only eighteen,” she thought, “I ought to have waited. Perhaps he’ll die.”
As she undressed, Elsie idly imagined a drama of which she herself would, of course, be the heroine.
Horace would be at the office, as usual, and a telephone message would come through to say that he was ill—very ill indeed—he was dead. Everyone would admire the young widow in her black, with her string of pearl beads.... Horace would leave her quite a lot of money. Elsie knew that he was rich, although he had never told her his income. She would stay on in the villa, but people would come and see her—she would go out and enjoy herself—enjoy life, once more....
Elsie sighed again as she got into bed.
Bored and exhausted, she fell asleep almost at once, to dream vividly.
In her dream, she stood outside a closed door, knowing that something unspeakably horrid lay beyond it. Terror paralysed her. At last she pushed at the door, but it would not yield more than an inch or two. Something was behind it. She looked down and saw a dark stain spreading round her feet, oozing from beneath the resistant door.
Screaming and sweating, Elsie woke up, and as she did so the remembrance came back to her in full of everything that the clairvoyante had said that morning.