"Do you think anything will come of it?"
"It's as sure as sure," said Mrs. Merry.
Eva, less superstitious, laughed uneasily, and tried to turn the subject. "Allen will be at the gate soon," she said. "I'm walking to the common with him for an hour."
"Ah well," droned Mrs. Merry, "take your walk, Miss Eva. You won't have another when he comes home."
"Nurse!" Eva stamped her foot and frowned. "You make my father out to be a----"
"Whatever I make him out to be, I'll never get near what he is," said Mrs. Merry viciously. "I hate him. He ruined my Giles, not as Giles was much to boast of. Still, I could have talked him into being a stay-at-home, if your pa--there--there--let him be, say I. If his cup is full he'll never come home alive."
Eva started and grew deathly pale. "My dream--my dream," she said.
"Ah yes!" Mrs. Merry advanced and clutched the girl's wrist. "You saw him dead or dying, eh, eh?"
"Don't, nurse; you frighten me," said Miss Strode, releasing her wrist; then she thought for a moment. "My dream or dreams," said she after a pause, went something after this fashion. "I thought I was in the Red Deeps----"
"Five miles from here," muttered Mrs. Merry, hugging herself. "I know the place--who better? Red clay and a splash of water, however dry."