“Barbara, I say, don’t you think this dream, coming uncalled for uninduced, must forebode some ill? Rely upon it, something connected with that wretched murder is going to be stirred up again.”
“You know, I do not believe in dreams,” was Barbara’s answer. “I think when people say, ‘this dream is a sign of such and such a thing,’ it is the greatest absurdity in the world. I wish you could remember what the man seemed like in your dream.”
“I wish I could,” answered Mrs. Hare, breaking off a particle of her dry toast. “All I can remember is, that he appeared to be a gentleman.”
“Was he tall? Had he black hair?”
Mrs. Hare shook her heard. “I tell you, my dear, the remembrance has passed from me; so whether his hair was black or light, I cannot say. I think he was tall, but he was sitting down, and Otway Bethel stood behind his chair. I seemed to feel that Richard was outside the door in hiding, trembling lest the man should go out and see him there; and I trembled, too. Oh, Barbara, it was a distressing dream!”
“I wish you could avoid having them, mamma, for they seem to upset you very much.”
“Why did you ask whether the man was tall, and had black hair?”
Barbara returned an evasive answer. It would not do to tell Mrs. Hare that her suspicions pointed to one particular quarter; it would have agitated her too greatly.
So vivid was the dream, she could scarcely persuade herself, when she awoke, that it was not real, and the murderer actually at West Lynne.
“Oh, Barbara, Barbara!” she exclaimed, in a wailing tone, “when will this mystery be cleared, and my own restored to me? Seven years since he stole here to see us, and no tidings yet.”