"But don't you see the bed of remorse you have made for me? Had I suspected the one quarter of what you tell me you felt, the woman might have gone to the uttermost ends of the earth, for me. I wish you had spoken."
"It might not have prevented it. My belief is that it would not. It was to be."
Mr. Lake looked at her.
"You remember the dream: how it shadowed forth that I was to meet, in some way, my death through going to Mrs. Chester's."
"Child! Can you still dwell upon that dream?"
"Yes. And so will you when the hearse comes here to take me away. Never was a dream more completely worked out. Not quite yet: it will be shortly. I have something else to tell you; about it and her."
Mr. Lake passed his hand across his brow. It seemed to him that he had heard enough already.
"The very first moment, when I met Lady Ellis at your sister's, her eyes puzzled me: those strange, jet-black eyes. I could not think where I had seen them. They seemed to be familiar to my memory, and I thought and thought in vain, even when the weeks went on. On this same night that we are speaking of, I alarmed you by my looks. Mrs. Chester happened to look at me as I sat by the fire; she called out; and you, who were at chess with--with her, came up. You all came round me. I was shaking, and my cheeks were scarlet, somebody exclaimed: I believe you thought I was seized with an ague-fit. Robert, I was shaking with fear, with undefined dread: for an instant before, as I sat looking at her eyes, it flashed into my mind whose eyes they were."
"Well, whose?" he asked, for she paused.
"They were those of the man who drove the hearse in my dream," she whispered in an awestruck tone. "The very same. You must recollect my describing them to you when I awoke: 'strangely black eyes, the blackest eyes I ever saw,' though of his face I retained no impression. It was singular it should have struck upon me then, when I had been for weeks trying unsuccessfully to get the thread of the mystery."