"'Am I awake or asleep?' he asks next.
"'Wide awake,' I say to him.
"'Then it is as I fear,' he replies. 'I see it, I see it distinctly. Can't you? Look, you must see it too. It is just over there, in the direction of the window. Don't you see that sphere of perfect light? Don't you see the picture in the middle?' He shivers; the drops of perspiration fall from his forehead.
"'Margaret,' he says, 'for God's sake look. Tell me that you see it too.'
"'I see nothing,' I answer him.
"'Then the vision is for me alone. It haunts me. What have I done to deserve it? Margaret, there is a circle of light over there—in the centre a picture—it is the picture of a murder. Two men are in it—yes, I know now—I am looking at the Plain near the Court—the moon is hidden behind the clouds—there are two men—they fight. God in heaven, one man falls—the other bends over him. I see the face of the fallen man, but I cannot see the face of the other. I should rest content if I could only see his face. Who is he, Margaret, who is he?'
"He falls back on his pillow half-fainting.
"This sort of thing goes on night after night, Dr. Rumsey. Toward morning the vision which tortures my unhappy husband begins to fade, he sinks into heavy slumber, and awakens late in the morning with no memory whatever of the horrible thing which has haunted him during the hours of darkness.
"The days which follow are more full than ever of that terrible inertia, and now he begins to look what he really is, a man stricken with an awful doom.
"The symptoms you speak of are certainly alarming," said Dr. Rumsey, after a pause. "They point to a highly unsatisfactory state of the nerve centres. These symptoms, joined to what you have already told me of the peculiar malady which Awdrey inherits, make his case a grave one. Of course, I by no means give up hope, but the recurrence of this vision nightly is a singular symptom. Does Awdrey invariably speak of not being able to see the face of the man who committed the murder?"