"Excuse me, Alete. I was wrong to give way so. Let us talk of something else."
"Yes, yes," said Alete, smiling amid her tears. "Has anything been heard of Ireneus?"
"Ireneus is—dead!" said Ebba sadly.
"Dead!" exclaimed Alete; "how so?"
"I know he is. I saw him last night."
"Ah, I have sometimes dreamed of a person's death, whom on the next morning I met perfectly well."
"I tell you I saw him struck by a ball in the breast, the blood running from the wound, looking staringly around, and smiling in the agonies of death."
"Madness! my dear Ebba," said Alete, with a burst of strange unnatural laughter, for in spite of herself she was impressed by the words of her sister. "Come, Eric and his father expect us. Let us pass our evening happily together, and shake off all these presentiments, which I pray to God may never be realized."
"Yes, come," and attempting to look gay, she said, "Madness! we will see."
During the next week, a letter from the mother of Ireneus informed them that the young officer had died on the very day of Ebba's dream, of a wound received at the siege of the Castle of Penissiere.