“Do you remember the time Mr. Grant came home before, when they tried to shoot him and he fell from his horse?”
“Yes; you went out and met him.”
“Yes, because I knew he was coming; when we were standing there by the open window, and the flash of lightning came, I knew he was hurt. I would have gone then, only I tried to think it was my fancy; I was afraid to find I was mistaken. And when I think of it in one way—as other people would—it always seems as if it could not be true—until it happens. It has been so ever since I was a little girl.”
“Oh, a presentiment!” murmured Philip, beginning to see light.
“The name makes no difference,” returned Marion, seeming to shiver a little. “The day my father was killed, I saw him. I saw him, with the wound in his breast. I said to myself, if that turned out to be true, I should know always afterward that I must believe. When you came and told how you found him, you only told what I had seen. I could have corrected you, if you had made a mistake.”
“You saw him!” echoed Philip.
“I saw him—something in me saw him; just as I saw Mr. Grant this evening. But it wasn’t that he came to me—that he appeared before me like a ghost; but I was where he was, and saw the place as well as him. It is at the bend of the road, not far from the little brook that runs into the river.”
“I have heard of such a power, but I never knew what to think of it,” Philip said. “But, Marion, if this peril to Mr. Grant has not happened yet, you must have seen not merely what was beyond your sight, but what was in the future. How could that be?”
“I don’t know; it’s no use trying to know. It can’t be reasoned about, unless you can tell what time and space are. When such things happen to me, there seems to be no future and no past; it is all the same—all one Now. And no good ever comes of my seeing; the things come to pass, and I cannot help it. It has been a curse to me: but if we could only save Mr. Grant, I would thank God!”
“We shall soon know about that,” said Philip; “as near as I can make out in this blackness, we must be pretty near the place you spoke of, by this time.”