“Chatteris is a dreamer, with an impossible, extravagant discontent. What does he dream of?… Three parts he is a dreamer and the fourth part—spoiled child.”
“Dreamer.…”
“Other dreams.…”
“What other dreams could she mean?”
My cousin fell into profound musings. Then he started, looked about him, saw the time by his Rathbone clock, got up suddenly and went to bed.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
THE CRISIS
I
The crisis came about a week from that time—I say about because of Melville’s conscientious inexactness in these matters. And so far as the crisis goes, I seem to get Melville at his best. He was keenly interested, keenly observant, and his more than average memory took some excellent impressions. To my mind, at any rate, two at least of these people come out, fuller and more convincingly than anywhere else in this painfully disinterred story. He has given me here an Adeline I seem to believe in, and something much more like Chatteris than any of the broken fragments I have had to go upon, and amplify and fudge together so far. And for all such transient lucidities in this mysterious story, the reader no doubt will echo my Heaven be thanked!