"Yes, he always makes a remark to that effect. He seems every night to see the murdered man lying on the ground with his face upward, but the man who commits the murder has his back to him. Last night he shrieked out in absolute terror on the subject:
"'Who is the man? That man on the ground is Horace Frere—he has been hewn down in the first strength of his youth—he is a dead man. There stands the murderer, with his back to me, but who is he? Oh, my God!' he cried out with great passion, 'who is the one who has done this deed? Who has murdered Horace Frere? I would give all I possess, all that this wide world contains, only to catch one glimpse of his face.'
"He sprang out of bed as he spoke, and went a step or two in the direction where he saw the peculiar vision, clasping his hands, and staring straight before him like a person distraught, and almost out of his mind. I followed him and tried to take his hand.
"'Robert!' I said, 'you know, don't you, quite well, who murdered Horace Frere? Poor fellow, it was not murder in the ordinary sense. Frank Everett is the name of the man whose face you cannot see. But it is an old story now, and you have nothing to do with it, nothing whatever—don't let it dwell any longer on your mind.'
"'Ha, but he carries my stick,' he shrieked out, and then he fell back in a state of unconsciousness against the bed."
"And do you mean to tell me that he remembered nothing of this agony in the morning?" queried Dr. Rumsey.
"Nothing whatever. At breakfast he complained of a slight headache and was particularly dull and moody. When I came off to you he had just started for a walk in the Park with our little boy."
"I should like to see your husband, and to talk to him," said Dr. Rumsey, rising abruptly. "Can you manage to bring him here?"
"I fear I cannot, for he does not consider himself ill."
"Shall you be at home this evening?"