“The darkness opened, and showed me the vision—as in a picture—of a broad, lonely pool, surrounded by open ground. Above the further margin of the pool I saw the cloudless western sky, red with the light of sunset.
“On the near margin of the pool there stood the Shadow of a Woman.”
He ceased, and let the hand which held the manuscript drop to his side. The other hand pointed to the lonely figure, standing with its back turned on them, fronting the setting sun.
“There,” he said, “stands the living Woman, in the Shadow’s place! There speaks the first of the dream warnings to you and to me! Let the future time find us still together, and the second figure that stands in the Shadow’s place will be Mine.”
Even Allan was silenced by the terrible certainty of conviction with which he spoke.
In the pause that followed, the figure at the pool moved, and walked slowly away round the margin of the shore. Allan stepped out beyond the last of the trees, and gained a wider view of the open ground. The first object that met his eyes was the pony-chaise from Thorpe Ambrose.
He turned back to Midwinter with a laugh of relief. “What nonsense have you been talking!” he said. “And what nonsense have I been listening to! It’s the governess at last.”
Midwinter made no reply. Allan took him by the arm, and tried to lead him on. He released himself suddenly, and seized Allan with both hands, holding him back from the figure at the pool, as he had held him back from the cabin door on the deck of the timber ship. Once again the effort was in vain. Once again Allan broke away as easily as he had broken away in the past time.
“One of us must speak to her,” he said. “And if you won’t, I will.”
He had only advanced a few steps toward the Mere, when he heard, or thought he heard, a voice faintly calling after him, once and once only, the word Farewell. He stopped, with a feeling of uneasy surprise, and looked round.