"If you wanted your breakfast as much as I want mine, you'd let Pike alone," retorted the clerk.
"I thought he was mixed up in some business with Lord Hartledon. I don't know what it was, but the dream was full of horror. It seemed that Lord Hartledon was dead or dying; whether he'd been killed or not, I can't say; but an awful dread was upon me of seeing him dead. A voice called out, 'Don't let him come to Calne!' and in the fright I awoke. I can't remember what part Pike played in the dream," she continued, "only the impression remained that he was in it."
"Perhaps he killed Lord Hartledon?" cried Gum, mockingly.
"No; not in the dream. Pike did not seem to be mixed up in it for ill. The ill was all on Lord Hartledon; but it was not Pike brought it upon him. Who it was, I couldn't see; but it was not Pike."
Clerk Gum looked down at his wife in scornful pity. He wondered sometimes, in his phlegmatic reasoning, why women were created such fools.
"Look here, Mrs. G. I thought those dreams of yours were pretty nearly dreamed out—there have been enough of 'em. How any woman, short of a born idiot, can stand there and confess herself so frightened by a dream as to be unable to get up and go about her duties, is beyond me."
"But, Gum, you don't let me finish. I woke up with the horror, I tell you—"
"What horror?" interrupted the clerk, angrily. "What did it consist of? I can't see the horror."
"Nor can I, very clearly," acknowledged Mrs. Gum; "but I know it was there. I woke up with the very words in my ears, 'Don't let him come to Calne!' and I started out of bed in terror for Lord Hartledon, lest he should come. We are only half awake, you know, at these moments. I pulled the curtain aside and looked out. Gum, if ever I thought to drop in my life, I thought it then. There was but one person to be seen in the road—and it was Lord Hartledon."
"Oh!" said Mr. Gum, cynically, after a moment of natural surprise. "Come out of his vault for a morning walk past your window, Mrs. G.!"