WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 WHAT DREAMS MAY COME.
 
 WHAT DREAMS MAY COME 
 
 A ROMANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 " We muse and brood 
 And ebb into a former life, or seem 
 To lapse far back in some confused dream, 
 To states of mystical similitude." 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE AND CO. 
 
 CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE AND COMPANY 
 1888
 
 PS 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 MURIEL ATHERTON
 
 WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. 
 
 THE OVERTURE. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE; the month of August; the 
 early days of the century. It was the hour of 
 the city's most perfect beauty. The sun was 
 setting, and flung a mellowing glow over the 
 great golden domes and minarets of the mosques, 
 the bazaars glittering with trifles and precious 
 with elements of Oriental luxury, the tortuous 
 thoroughfares with their motley throng, the quiet 
 streets with their latticed windows, and their at- 
 mosphere heavy with silence and mystery, the 
 palaces whose cupolas and towers had watched 
 over so many centuries of luxury and intrigue, 
 pleasure and crime, the pavilions, groves, gar- 
 dens, kiosks which swarmed with the luxuriance 
 of tropical growth over the hills and valleys of 
 a city so vast and so beautiful that it tired 
 the brain and fatigued the senses. Scutari, pur-
 
 8 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 pie and green and gold, blended in the dying 
 light into exquisite harmony of color; Stamboul 
 gathered deeper gloom under her overhanging 
 balconies, behind which lay hidden the loveliest 
 of her women; and in the deserted gardens of the 
 Old Seraglio, beneath the heavy pall of the cy- 
 presses, memories of a grand, terrible, barbarous, 
 but most romantic Past crept forth and whis- 
 pered ruin and decay. 
 
 High up in Pera the gray walls of the English 
 Embassy stood out sharply defined against the 
 gold-wrought sky. The windows were thrown 
 wide to invite the faint, capricious breeze which 
 wandered through the hot city; but the silken 
 curtains were drawn in one of the smaller recep- 
 tion-rooms. The room itself was a soft blaze 
 of wax candles against the dull richness of 
 crimson and gold. Men and women were idling 
 about in that uneasy atmosphere which pre- 
 cedes the announcement of dinner. Many of 
 the men wore orders on their breasts, and the 
 uniforms of the countries they represented, and 
 a number of Turks gave a picturesque touch to 
 the scene, with their jewelled turbans and flowing 
 robes. The women were as typical as their hus- 
 bands; the wite of the Russian Ambassador, with 
 her pale hair and moonlight eyes, her delicate 
 shoulders and jewel -sewn robe ; the Italian, 
 with her lithe grace and heavy brows , the 
 Spanish beauty, with her almond, dreamy eyes,
 
 IV hat Dreams May Come. 9 
 
 her chiselled features and mantilla-draped head ; 
 the Frenchwoman, with her bright, sallow, charm- 
 ing, unrestful face; the Austrian, with her cold 
 repose and latent devil. In addition were the 
 Secretaries of Legation, with their gaily-gowned 
 young wives, and one or two English residents ; 
 all assembled at the bidding of Sir Dafyd-ap- 
 Penrhyn, the famous diplomatist who represented 
 England at the court of the Sultan. 
 
 Sir Dafyd was standing between the windows 
 and underneath one of the heavy candelabra. He 
 was a small but striking-looking man,with a great 
 deal of head above the ears, light blue eyes deeply 
 set and far apart, a delicate arched nose, and a 
 certain expression of brutality about the thin 
 lips, so faint as to be little more than a shadow. 
 He was blandly apologizing for the absence of 
 his wife. She had dressed to meet her guests, 
 but had been taken suddenly ill and obliged to 
 retire. 
 
 As he finished speaking he turned to a woman 
 who sat on a low chair at his right. She was 
 young and very handsome. Her eyes were black 
 and brilliant, her mouth was pouting and petulant, 
 her chin curved slightly outward. Her features 
 were very regular, but there was neither softness 
 nor repose in her face. She looked like a statue 
 that had been taken possession of by the Spirit 
 of Discontent. 
 
 "I am sorry not to see Dartmouth," said the
 
 1 
 
 ro What Dreams May Come. 
 
 great minister, affably. " Is he ill again ? He 
 must be careful ; the fever is dangerous." 
 
 Mrs. Dartmouth drew her curved brows to- 
 gether with a frown which did not soften her 
 face. " He is writing," she said, shortly. " He 
 is always writing." 
 
 " O, but you know that is a Dartmouth fail- 
 ing ambition," said Sir Dafyd, with a smile. 
 " They must be either in the study or dictating 
 to the King." 
 
 "Well, I wish my Fate had been a political 
 Dartmouth. Lionel sits in his study all day and 
 writes poetry which I detest. I shall bring up 
 my son to be a statesman." 
 
 " So that his wife may see more of him ? " said 
 Sir Dafyd, laughing. " You are quite capable of 
 making whatever you like of him, however, for 
 you are a clever woman if you are not poetical. 
 But it is hard that you should be so much alone, 
 Catherine. Why are not you and Sioned more 
 together ? There are so few of you here, you 
 should try and amuse each other. Diplomatists, 
 like poets, see little of their wives, and Sioned, 
 I have no doubt, is bored very often." 
 
 Dinner was announced at the moment, and 
 Mrs. Dartmouth stood up and looked her com- 
 panion full in the eyes. " I do not like Sioned," 
 she said, harshly. "She, too, is poetical." 
 
 For a moment there was a suspicion of color 
 in Sir Dafyd's pale face, and the shadow on his
 
 W 'hat Dreams AT ay Come. n 
 
 mouth seemed to take shape and form. Then 
 he bowed slightly, and crossing the room offered 
 his arm to the wife of the Russian Ambassador. 
 
 # * * * * 
 
 The sun sank lower, Constantinople's richer 
 tints faded into soft opal hues, and the muezzin 
 called the people to prayer. From a window in a 
 wing of the Embassy furthest from the banqueting 
 hall, and overlooking the city, a woman watched 
 the shifting panorama below. She was more 
 beautiful than any of her neglected guests, al- 
 though her eyes were heavy and her face was pale. 
 Her hair was a rich, burnished brown, and drawn 
 up to the crown of her head in a loose mass of 
 short curls, held in place by a half-coronet of 
 diamonds. In front the hair was parted and 
 curled, and the entire head was encircled by a 
 band of diamond stars which pressed the bronze 
 ringlets low over the forehead. The features 
 were slightly aquiline; the head was oval and ad- 
 mirably poised. But it was the individuality of 
 the woman that made her beauty, not features or 
 coloring. The keen, intelligent eyes, with their 
 unmistakable power to soften, the spiritual brow, 
 the strong, sensuous chin, the tender mouth, the 
 spirited head, each a poet's delight, each an 
 artist's study, all blended, a strange, strong, pas- 
 sionate story in flesh and blood a remarkable 
 face. Her neck and arms were bare, and she 
 wore a short-waisted gown of yellow satin, which 
 fell in shining lines from belt to hem.
 
 12 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 Pale as she was she assuredly did not look ill 
 enough to justify her desertion of her guests. 
 As a matter of fact she had forgotten both 
 guests and excuse. When a woman has taken a 
 resolution which flings her suddenly up to the 
 crisis of her destiny she is apt to forget state 
 dinners and whispered comment. To-morrow 
 state dinners would pass out of her life, and they 
 would go unregretted. She turned suddenly and 
 picked up some loose sheets of manuscript which 
 lay on a table beside her a poem which would 
 immortalize the city her window overlooked. A 
 proud smile curved her mouth, then faded swiftly 
 as she pressed the pages passionately to her 
 lips. She put them back on the table and turn- 
 ing her head looked down the room with much 
 of the affection one gives a living thing. The 
 room was as Oriental as any carefully secluded 
 chamber in the city below The walls were hung 
 with heavy, soft Eastern stuffs, dusky and rich, 
 which shut out all suggestion of doors. The 
 black marble floor was covered with a strange 
 assortment of wild beasts' skins, pale, tawny, 
 sombre, ferocious. There were deep, soft 
 couches and great piles of cushions, a few rare 
 paintings stood on easels, and the air was heavy 
 with jasmine. The woman's lids fell over her 
 eyes, and the blood mounted slowly, making her 
 temples throb. Then she threw back her head, 
 a triumphant light flashing in her eyes, and
 
 What Dreams A fay Come. 13 
 
 brought her open palm down sharply on the 
 table. "If I fall," she said, "I fall through 
 strength, not through weakness. If I sin, I do 
 so wittingly, not in a moment of overmastering 
 passion." 
 
 She bent suddenly forward, her breath coming 
 quickly. There were footsteps at the end of the 
 marble corridor without. For a moment she 
 trembled from head to foot. Remorse, regret, 
 horror, fear, chased each other across her face, 
 her convulsed features reflecting the emotions 
 which for weeks past had oppressed heart and 
 brain. Then, before the footsteps reached the 
 door, she was calm again and her head erect. 
 The glory of the sunset had faded, and behind 
 her was the short grey twilight of the Southern 
 night; but in her face was that magic light that 
 never was on sea or land. 
 
 The heavy portiere at the end of the room 
 was thrust aside and a man entered. He closed 
 the door and pushed the hanging back into 
 place, then went swiftly forward and stood be- 
 fore her. She held out her hand and he took it 
 and drew her further within the room. The twi- 
 light had gone from the window, the shadows 
 had deepened, and the darkness of night was 
 about them. 
 
 ***** j 
 
 In the great banqueting-hall the stout mahogany 
 table upheld its weight of flashing gold and silver
 
 i4 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 and sparkling crystal without a groan, and solemn, 
 turbaned Turks passed wine and viand. Around 
 the board the diplomatic colony forgot their ex- 
 ile in remote Constantinople, and wit and anec- 
 dote, spicy but good-humored political discus- 
 sion, repartee and flirtation made a charming 
 accompaniment to the wonderful variety dis- 
 played in the faces and accents of the guests. 
 The stately, dignified ministers of the Sultan 
 gazed at the fair faces and jewel-laden shoulders 
 of the women of the North, and sighed as they 
 thought of their dusky wives; and the women of 
 the North threw blue, smiling glances to the 
 Turks and wondered if it were romantic to live 
 in a harem. 
 
 At the end of the second course Sir Dafyd 
 raised a glass of wine to his lips, and, as he 
 glanced about the table, conversation ceased for 
 a moment. 
 
 " Will you drink to my wife's health ? " he 
 said. " It has caused me much anxiety of 
 late." 
 
 Every glass was simultaneously raised, and 
 then Sir Dafyd pushed back his chair and rose 
 to his feet. " If you will pardon me," he said, 
 " I will go and see how she is." 
 
 He left the room, and the wife of the Spanish 
 Ambassador turned to her companion with a 
 sigh. " So devot he is, no ? " she murmured. 
 "You Eenglish, you have the fire undere the ice.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 15 
 
 He lover his wife very moocho when he leaver 
 the dinner. And she lover him too, no?" 
 
 " I don't know/ said the Englishman to 
 whom she spoke. " It never struck me that 
 Penrhyn was a particularly lovable fellow. 
 He's so deuced haughty; the Welsh are worse 
 for that than we English. He's as unapproach- 
 able as a stone. I don't fancy the Lady Sioned 
 worships the ground he treads upon. But then, 
 he's the biggest diplomate in Great Britain; 
 one can't have everything." 
 
 " I no liker all the Eenglish, though," pursued 
 the pretty Spaniard. " The Senora Dar-muth, I 
 no care for her. She looker like she have the 
 tempere how you call him? the dev-vil, no ? 
 And she looker like she have the fire ouside and 
 the ice in." 
 
 "Oh, she's not so bad," said the Englishman, 
 loyally. ' She has some admirable traits, and 
 she s deuced clever, but she has an ill-regulated 
 sort of a nature, and is awfully obstinate and 
 prejudiced. It's a sort of vanity. She worries 
 Dartmouth a good deal. He's a born poet, if 
 ever a man was, and she wants him to go into 
 politics. Wants a salon and all that sort of 
 thing. She ought to have it, too. Political in- 
 trigue would just suit her; she's diplomatic and 
 secretive. But Dartmouth prefers his study." 
 
 The lady from Spain raised her sympathetic, 
 pensive eyes to the Englishman's. "And the
 
 1 6 What Dreams May Conic. 
 
 Senor Dar-muth ? How he is ? He is nice fel- 
 low ? I no meeting hime ? " 
 
 " The best fellow that ever lived, God bless 
 him!" exclaimed the young man, enthusiasti- 
 cally. " He has the temperament of genius, and 
 he isn't always there when you want him I 
 mean, he isn't always in the right mood; but he's 
 a splendid specimen of a man, and the most like- 
 able fellow I ever knew poor fellow! " 
 
 " Why you say ' poor fel-low' ? He is no happy, 
 no?" 
 
 " Well, you see," said the young man, suc- 
 cumbing to those lovely, pitying eyes, and not 
 observing that they gazed with equal tenderness 
 at the crimson wine in the cup beside her plate 
 "you see, he and his wife are none too congenial, 
 as I said. It makes her wild to have him write, 
 not only because she wants to cut a figure in 
 London, and he will always live in some roman- 
 tic place like this, but she's in love with him, in 
 her way, and she's jealous of his very desk. 
 That makes things unpleasant about the domes- 
 tic hearthstone. And then she doesn't believe 
 a bit in his talent, and takes good care to let him 
 know it. So, you see, he's not the most envia- 
 ble of mortals." 
 
 " Much better she have be careful," said the 
 Spanish woman; "some day he feel tire out and 
 go to lover someone else. Please you geeve me 
 some more clarette ?"
 
 What Dreams May Come. 17 
 
 "Here comes Sir Dafyd, 1 ' said the English- 
 man, as he filled her glass. " It has taken him a 
 long time to find out how she is." 
 
 The shadow had wholly disappeared from Sir 
 Dafyd's mouth, a faint smile hovering there in- 
 stead. As he took his seat the Austrian Ambas- 
 sador leaned forward and inquired politely 
 about the state of Lady Sioned's health. 
 
 " She is sleeping quietly," said Sir Dafyd.
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE MELODY. 
 I. 
 
 THE Hon. Harold Dartmouth was bored. He 
 had been in Paris three months and it was his 
 third winter. He was young. He possessed a 
 liberal allowance of good looks, money, and 
 family prestige. Combining these three condi- 
 tions, he had managed to pretty thoroughly ex- 
 haust the pleasures of the capital. At all events 
 he believed he had exhausted them, and he 
 wanted a new sensation. He had " done " his 
 London until it was more flavorless than Paris, 
 and he had dawdled more or less in the various 
 Courts of Europe. While in St. Petersburg he 
 had inserted a too curious finger into the Ter- 
 rorist pie, and had come very near making a 
 prolonged acquaintance with the House of Pre- 
 ventative Detention; but after being whisked 
 safely out of the country under cover of a 
 friend's passport, he had announced himself 
 cured of further interest in revolutionary poli-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 19 
 
 tics. The affair had made him quite famous for 
 a time, however; Krapotkin had sought him out 
 and warmly thanked him for his interest in the 
 Russian Geysers, and begged him to induce his 
 father to abjure his peace policy and lend his 
 hand to the laudable breaking of Czarism's 
 back. But Lord Cardingham, who was not alto- 
 gether ruled by his younger son, had declined to 
 expend his seductions upon Mr. Gladstone in 
 the cause of a possible laying of too heavy a 
 rod upon England's back, and had recommended 
 his erratic son to let the barbarism of absolut- 
 ism alone in the future, and try his genius upon 
 that of democracy. Dartmouth, accordingly, 
 had spent a winter in Washington as Sec- 
 retary of Legation, and had entertained himself 
 by doling out such allowance of diplomatic love 
 to the fair American dames as had won him 
 much biographical honor in the press of the 
 great republic. Upon his father's private ad- 
 monition, that it would be as well to generously 
 resign his position in favor of some more needy 
 applicant, with a less complex heart-line and a 
 slight acquaintance with international law, he 
 had, after a summer at Newport, returned to 
 Europe and again devoted himself to winning 
 a fame not altogether political. And now there 
 was nothing left, and he felt that fate had used 
 him scurrilously. He was twenty-eight, and had 
 exhausted life. He had nothing left but to
 
 2o What Dreams May Come. 
 
 yawn through weary years and wish he had never 
 been born. 
 
 He clasped his hands behind his head and 
 looked out on the brilliant crowd from his chair 
 in the Cafe de la Cascade in the Bois. He was 
 handsome, this blase young Englishman, with a 
 shapely head, poised strongly upon a muscular 
 throat. Neither beard nor moustache hid the 
 strong lines of the face. A high type, in spite of 
 his career, his face was a good deal more sug- 
 gestive of passion than of sensuality. He was tall, 
 slight, and sinewy, and carried himself with the 
 indolent hauteur of a man of many grandfathers. 
 And indeed, unless, perhaps, that this plaything, 
 the world, was too small, he had little to 
 complain of. Although a younger son, he 
 had a large fortune in his own right, left 
 him by an adoring grandmother who had died 
 shortly before he had come of age, and with 
 whom he had lived from infancy as adopted son 
 and heir. This grandmother was the one woman 
 who had ever shone upon his horizon whose dis. 
 appearance he regretted; and he was wont to 
 remark that he never again expected to find any- 
 thing beneath a coiffure at once so brilliant, so 
 fascinating, so clever, so altogether " filling " as 
 his lamented relative. If he ever did he would 
 marry and settle down as a highly respectable 
 member of society, and become an M. P. and the 
 owner of a winner of the Derby; but until then
 
 What Dreams May Come. 21 
 
 he would sigh away his tired life at the feet of 
 beauty, Bacchus, or chance. 
 
 "What is the matter, Hal?" asked Bective 
 Hollington, coming up behind him. " Yawning 
 so early in the day ? '' 
 
 " Bored," replied Dartmouth, briefly. " Don't 
 expect me to talk to you. I haven't an idea 
 left." 
 
 " My dear Harold, do not flatter yourself that 
 I came to you in search of ideas. I venture to 
 break upon your sulky meditations in the cause 
 of friendship alone. If you will rouse yourself 
 and walk to the window you may enrich your 
 sterile mind with an idea, possibly with ideas. 
 Miss Penrhyn will pass in a moment." 
 
 "The devil!" 
 
 "No, not the devil; Miss Penrhyn." 
 
 " And who the devil is Miss Penrhyn ? " 
 
 " The new English, or rather, Welsh beauty, 
 Weir Penrhyn," replied Hollington. " She came 
 out last season in London, and the Queen pro- 
 nounced her the most beautitul girl who had 
 been presented at Court for twenty years. Such 
 a relief from the blue-eyed and golden-bronze ' 
 professional! She will pass in a moment. Do 
 rouse yourself." 
 
 Dartmouth got up languidly and walked to 
 the window. After all, a new face and a pretty 
 one was something; one degree, perhaps, better 
 than nothing. " Which is she ? " he asked.
 
 22 W licit Dreams May Come. 
 
 " The one in the next carriage, with Lady 
 Langdon, talking to Bolton." 
 
 The carriage passed them, and Harold's eyes 
 met for a moment those of a girl who was lying 
 back chatting idly with a man who rode on 
 horseback beside her. She was a beautiful crea- 
 ture, truly, with a rich, dark skin, and eyes like a 
 tropical animal's. A youthful face, striking and 
 unconventional. 
 
 "Well?" queried Hollington. 
 
 " Yes, a very handsome girl," said Dartmouth. 
 " I have seen her before, somewhere." 
 
 "What! you have seen that woman before and 
 not remembered her? Impossible! And then 
 you have not been in England for a year." 
 
 " I am sure I have seen her before," said 
 Dartmouth. "Where could it have been?" 
 
 "Her father is a Welsh baronet, and your 
 estates are in the North, so you could hardly 
 have known her as a child. She was educated 
 in the utmost seclusion at home; no one ever 
 saw her or heard of her until the fag end of the 
 last London season, and she only arrived in 
 Paris two days ago, and made her first appear- 
 ance in public last night at the opera, where you 
 were not. So where could you have seen 
 her?" 
 
 " I cannot imagine," said Dartmouth, medita- 
 tively. " But her face is dimly familiar, and it is 
 a most unusual one. Tell me something about 
 her; " and he resumed his seat.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 23 
 
 " She is the daughter of Sir Iltyd-ap-Penrhyn," 
 said Hollington, craning his neck to catch a last 
 glimpse of the disappearing beauty. " Awfully 
 poor, but dates back to before Chaos. Looks 
 down with scorn upon Sir Watkin Wynn, who 
 hangs up the flood on the middle branch of his 
 family tree. They live in adilapitated old castle 
 on the coast, and there Sir Iltyd brought up this 
 tropical bird she is an only child and edu- 
 cated her himself. Her mother died when she 
 was very young, and her father, with the pro- 
 verbial constancy of mankind, has never been 
 known to smile since. Lively for the tropical 
 bird, was it not ? Lady Langdon, who was in 
 Wales last year, and who was an old friend of 
 the girl's mother, called on her and saw the pro- 
 fessional possibilities, so to speak. She gave the 
 old gentleman no peace until he told her she 
 could take the girl to London, which she did 
 forthwith, before he had time to change his 
 mind. She has made a rousing sensation, but 
 she is a downright beauty and no mistake. Lady 
 Langdon evidently intends to hold on to her, for 
 I see she has her still." 
 
 "I could not have known her, of course; I 
 have never put my foot in Wales. But I sup- 
 pose I shall meet her now. Is she to be at the 
 Russian Legation to-night?" 
 
 "Yes; I have it from the best authority her- 
 self. You had better go. She is worth knowing, 
 I can tell you."
 
 24 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 "Well, I'll think of it," said Dartmouth. "I 
 must be off now; I have no end of letters to 
 write. I'll rely upon you to do the honors if I 
 go! " and he took up his hat and sauntered out. 
 
 He went directly to his apartments on the 
 Avenue Champs Elyse"es, and wrote a few epis- 
 tles to his impatient and much-enduring relatives 
 in Britain; then, lighting a cigar, he flung him- 
 self upon the sofa. The room accorded with 
 the man. Art and negligence were hand- 
 in-hand. The hangings were of dusky-gold 
 plush, embroidered with designs which breathed 
 the fervent spirit of Decorative Art, and the 
 floor was covered with the oldest and oddest of 
 Persian rugs. There were cabinets of antique 
 medallions, cameos, and enamels; low brass 
 book-cases, filled with volumes bound in Russian 
 leather, whose pungent odor filled the room; a 
 varied collection of pipes; a case of valuable 
 ceramics, one of the collection having a pedigree 
 which no uncelestial mind had ever 'pretended to 
 grasp, and which had been presented to Lord 
 Cardingham, while minister to China, by the 
 Emperor. That his younger son had unblush- 
 ingly pilfered it he had but recently discovered, 
 but demands for its return had as yet availed 
 not. There were a few valuable paintings, a 
 case of rare old plates, many with the coats of 
 arms of sovereigns upon them, strangely carved 
 chairs, each with a history, all crowded together
 
 W hat Dreams May Come. 25 
 
 and making a charming nest for the listless, 
 somewhat morbid, and disgusted young man 
 stretched out upon a couch, covered with a rug 
 of ostrich feathers brought from the Straits of 
 Magellan. Over the onyx mantel was a por- 
 trait of his grandmother, a handsome old lady 
 with high-piled, snow-white hair, and eyes whose 
 brilliancy age had not dimmed. The lines about 
 the mouth were hard, but the face was full of intel- 
 ligence, and the man at her feet had never seen 
 anything of the hardness of her nature. She 
 had blindly idolized him. 
 
 "I wish she were here now," thought Dart- 
 mouth regretfully, as he contemplated the pic- 
 ture through the rings of smoke; "I could talk 
 over things with her, and she could hit off people 
 with that tongue of hers. Gods! how it could 
 cut! Poor old lady! I wonder if I shall ever 
 find her equal." After which, he fell asleep and 
 forgot his sorrows until his valet awakened him 
 and told him it was time to dress for dinner. 
 
 II. 
 
 I HOPE I have not conveyed to the reader the 
 idea that our hero is frivolous. On the contrary, 
 he was considered a very brilliant young man, 
 and he could command the respect of his elders 
 when he chose. But, partly owing to his wealth 
 and independent condition, partly to the fact 
 that the world had done its best to spoil him, he
 
 26 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 had led a very aimless existence. He was by no 
 means satisfied with his life, however; he was far 
 too clever for that; and he had spent a good 
 deal of time, first and last, reviling Fate for not 
 having endowed him with some talent upon 
 which he could concentrate his energies, and with 
 which attain distinction and find balm for his 
 ennui. His grandmother had cherished the con- 
 viction that he was an undeveloped genius; but 
 in regard to what particular field his genius was 
 to enrich, she had never clearly expressed her- 
 self, and his own consciousness had not been 
 more explicit. He had long ago made up his 
 mind, indeed, that his grandmother's convictions 
 had been the fond delusions of a doting parent, 
 and that the sooner he unburdened himself of that 
 particular legacy the better. The unburdening, 
 however, had been accomplished with a good 
 deal of bitterness, for he was very ambitious and 
 very proud, and to be obliged to digest the fact 
 that he was but a type of the great majority was 
 distinctly galling. True, politics were left. His 
 father, one of the most distinguished of Eng- 
 land's statesmen, and a member of the present 
 cabinet, would have been delighted to assist his 
 career; but Harold disliked politics. With the 
 exception of his passing interest in the Russian 
 socialists an interest springing from his adven- 
 turous nature he had never troubled himself 
 about any party, faction, or policy, home or for-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 27 
 
 eign. He would like to write a great poem, but 
 he had never felt a second's inspiration, and had 
 never wasted time in the endeavor to force it. 
 Failing that, he would like to write a novel; 
 but, fluently and even brilliantly as he some- 
 times talked, his pen was not ready, and he was 
 conscious of a conspicuous lack of imagination. 
 To be sure, one does not need much in these 
 days of realistic fervor; it is considered 
 rather a coarse and old-fashioned article; but 
 that one needs some sort of a plot is indisputa- 
 ble, and Dartmouth's brain had consistently 
 refused to evolve one. Doubtless he could cul- 
 tivate the mere habit of writing, and achieve 
 reputation as an essayist. His critical faculty 
 was pronounced, and he had carefully developed 
 it; and it was possible that when the world had 
 completely palled upon him, he would shut him- 
 self up at Crumford Hall and give the public the 
 benefit of his accumulated opinions, abstract 
 and biographical. But he was not ready for 
 that yet; he needed several years more of experi- 
 ence, observation, and assiduous cultivation of 
 the habit of analysis; and in the meantime he 
 was in a condition of cold disgust with himself 
 and with Fate. It may also have been gathered 
 that Mr. Dartmouth was a young man of decid- 
 edly reckless proclivities. It is quite true that 
 he never troubled himself about any question of 
 morals or social ethics; he simply calculated the
 
 28 What Dreams May Come, 
 
 mathematical amount of happiness possible to 
 the individual. That was all there was in life. 
 Had he lived a generation or two earlier, he 
 would have pursued his way along the paths of 
 the prohibited without introspective analysis; 
 but being the intellectual young man of the 
 latter decades of the ipth century, it amused 
 him to season his defiance of certain conventional 
 codes with the salt of philosophy. 
 
 Miss Penrhyn reached the Legation a few 
 moments after Dartmouth's arrival, and he 
 watched her as she entered the ballroom. She 
 wore a simple white gown, embroidered about 
 the corsage with silver crescents; and her 
 richly-tinted brown hair was coiled about her 
 head and held in place by a crescent-shaped 
 comb. She was a tall, slim, shapely girl, with an 
 extreme grace of carriage and motion, and a 
 neck and arms whose clear olive was brought out 
 with admirable effect by the dead white of her 
 gown. Her face, somewhat listless and preoc- 
 cupied as she entered, quickly brightened into 
 animation as a number of men at once sur- 
 rounded her. Dartmouth continued to watch 
 her for a few moments, and concluded that he 
 would like to know her, even if she were a girl 
 and an ingenue. She was fascinating, apart from 
 her beauty ; she looked different from other 
 women, and that was quite enough to command 
 his interest. It would be too much trouble to
 
 What Dreams May Come. 29 
 
 struggle for an introduction at present, however, 
 and he allowed himself to be taken possession of 
 by his cousin, Margaret Talbot, who, with the 
 easy skill of a spoiled beauty, dismissed several 
 other cavaliers upon his approach. They wan- 
 dered about for a time, and finally entered a tiny 
 boudoir fitted up to represent a bird's nest in 
 tufted blue satin, with an infinite number of tea- 
 cups so arranged as to be cunningly suggestive 
 of eggs whose parents had been addicted to Dec- 
 orative Art. 
 
 " What do you think of the new beauty?" de- 
 manded Mrs. Talbot, as they established them- 
 selves upon an extremely uncomfortable little 
 sofa upheld between the outstretched wings of 
 the parent bird, which was much too large for the 
 eggs. 
 
 " She does very well," replied Harold, who 
 was wise in his generation. 
 
 Mrs. Talbot put her handkerchief suddenly to 
 her face and burst into tears. Dartmouth turned 
 pale. 
 
 " What is it, Margaret ? " he said. " Do 
 not cry here ; people will notice, and make re- 
 marks." 
 
 She made no reply, and he got up and moved 
 restlessly about the room ; then returning he 
 stood looking moodily down upon her. 
 
 Some years before, just about the time he was 
 emerging from knickerbockers, he had been madly
 
 30 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 in love with this golden-haired, hazel-eyed cousin 
 of his, and the lady, who had the advantage of 
 him in years, being unresponsive, he had haunted 
 a very large and very deep ornamental pond in 
 his grandmother's park for several weeks with 
 considerable persistency. Had the disease at- 
 tacked him in summer it is quite probable that 
 this story would never have been written, for his 
 nature was essentially a high-strung and tragic 
 one ; but fortunately he met his beautiful 
 cousin in mid-winter, and 'tis a despairing lover 
 indeed who breaks the ice. Near as their rela- 
 tionship was, he had not met her again until the 
 present winter, and then he had found that years 
 had lent her additional fascination. She was ex- 
 tremely unhappy in her domestic life, and nat- 
 urally she gave him her confidence and awoke 
 that sentiment which is so fatally akin to an- 
 other and sometimes more disastrous one. 
 
 Dartmouth loved her with that love which a 
 man gives to so many women before the day 
 comes wherein he recognizes the spurious metal 
 from the real. It was not, as in its first stage, 
 the mad, unreasoning fancy of an unfledged boy, 
 but that sentiment, half sympathy, half passion, 
 which a woman may inspire who is not strong 
 enough to call out the highest and best that lies 
 hidden in a man's nature. This feeling for his 
 cousin, if not the supremest that a woman can 
 command, bore one characteristic which dis-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 31 
 
 tinguished it from any of his previous passions. 
 For the first time in his life he had resisted a 
 temptation principally because she was his 
 cousin. With the instinct of his caste he ac- 
 knowledged the obligation to avert dishonor in 
 his own family where he could. And, aside 
 from family pride, he had a strong personal re- 
 gard for his cousin which was quite independent 
 of that sentiment which, for want of a better 
 name, he called love. She was young, she was 
 lonely, she was unhappy, and his calmer affection 
 prompted him to protect her from himself, and 
 not, after a brief period of doubtful happiness, 
 to leave her to a lifetime of tormenting mem- 
 ories and regrets. She loved him, of course; and 
 reckless with the knowledge of her ruined life, 
 her hopeless future, and above all the certainty 
 that youth and its delicious opportunities were 
 slipping fast, she would doubtless have gone the 
 way of most women under similar circumstances, 
 had not Harold, for once in his life, been strong. 
 Perhaps, if he had really loved her, he would not 
 have been so self-sacrificing. 
 
 After her paroxysm of tears had partly sub- 
 sided, he took her hand. " What is the matter ? " 
 he asked, kindly. " Is there any more trouble ? " 
 
 " It is the same," she said. " You know how 
 unhappy I am; it was foolish of me to break 
 down here, but I could not help it. Besides, 
 there is another thing I wish you would go 
 away."
 
 32 What Dreams May Come, 
 
 He walked to the end of the room, then re- 
 turned and bent over her, placing his hand on the 
 back of the sofa. "Very well," he said, "I will 
 go. I should have gone before. I would have 
 done so, but I hated to leave you alone." 
 
 He lifted her face and kissed her. She laid her 
 head against his shoulder, then she suddenly 
 pushed him from her with a low cry, and Dart- 
 mouth, following her gaze, turned his head in 
 time to meet the scornful eyes of Miss Penrhyn 
 as she dropped the portiere from her hand. 
 Dartmouth kicked aside a footstool with an ex- 
 clamation of anger. He was acutely conscious 
 of having been caught in a ridiculous position, 
 and moreover, he would not be the chief sufferer. 
 
 " Oh, Harold ! Harold ! " gasped Margaret, 
 " lam ruined. You know what women are. By 
 this time to-morrow that girl will have told the 
 story all over Paris." 
 
 The words made Dartmouth forget his per- 
 sonal annoyance for the moment. " Do not cry 
 any more," he said, kindly; " lam awfully sorry, 
 but I will see what I can do. I will make a 
 point of meeting the girl, and I will see that 
 do not worry. I will go at once, and you had 
 better remain here for the present. There is 
 no danger of anyone intruding upon you: this 
 room was never intended for three." He paused 
 a moment. " Good-bye, Margaret ! " he said. 
 
 She started sharply, but rose to her feet and 
 put out her hand: " Good-bye," she said.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 33 
 
 He lifted her hand to his lips, then the 
 portiere fell behind him and she was alone. 
 
 He went directly to the ball-room and asked 
 Hollington to present him to Miss Penrhyn. 
 She was standing with her back to him and did 
 not notice his approach, and his name was pro- 
 nounced while her eyes were still on the face 
 of the man to whom she was talking. She gave 
 him a glance of swift scorn, bent her head 
 haughtily, and all but turned her back upon him. 
 But Dartmouth, indolent and lazy as he was, was 
 not the man to be lightly disposed of when once 
 roused to action. 
 
 " Bolton," he said, to her companion, " they are 
 waiting for you in the billiard-room; you have an 
 engagement to play a game with our host at 
 twelve. It is now exactly the hour. I will take 
 charge of Miss Penrhyn;" and before the be- 
 wildered Bolton could protest, or Miss Penrhyn 
 realize his purpose, he had drawn the girl's arm 
 through his own and was half-way down the 
 room. 
 
 " Where have I met you before ? " he de- 
 manded, when they were safely lost in the 
 crowd. " Surely, we are not altogether strang- 
 ers." 
 
 "I do not know," haughtily; " I have never 
 met you before that I am aware of." 
 
 " It is strange, but I cannot get rid of the idea 
 that I have seen you elsewhere,'" continued Dart-
 
 34 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 mouth, unmoved. "And yet, if I had, I most 
 assuredly could not have forgotten it." 
 
 " You are flattering, but I must ask you to ex- 
 cuse me. I am engaged for the next dance, and 
 I see my partner looking for me." 
 
 " Indeed, I shall do nothing of the kind. I 
 have no idea of resigning you so lightly." 
 And he calmly led her into a small with- 
 drawing-room and seated her behind a pro- 
 tecting screen. He took the chair beside her 
 and smiled down into her angry face. Her eyes, 
 which had a peculiar yellow flame in them, now 
 within, now just without the iris, as if from a tiny 
 lantern hidden in their depths, were blazing. 
 
 "Well?" he said, calmly; "of what are you 
 thinking ?" 
 
 " That you are the rudest and the most imper- 
 tinent man I have ever met," she replied, hotly. 
 
 "You are unkind; I have been unfortunate 
 enough to incur your disapproval, but you judge 
 me cruelly. I am undoubtedly a very repre- 
 hensible character, Miss Penrhyn, but I don't 
 think that I am worse than most men." He recog- 
 nized at once that it would be folly to tell the 
 usual lie: she would simply laugh in his face. 
 He must accept the situation, plead guilty and 
 make a skilful defense. Later, when he had es- 
 tablished himself in her confidence, he would 
 exonerate his cousin. 
 
 Miss Penrhyn's lip curled disdainfully. " I am
 
 ]Vhat Dreams May Come. 35 
 
 not aware that I have asked you to justify your- 
 self," she said. " It is of no possible interest to 
 me whether you are better or worse than most 
 men. It is quite possible, however," she added, 
 hastily and unwillingly, " that in this case, as in 
 others, there may be the relief of an exception to 
 prove the rule." 
 
 Dartmouth saw his advantage at once. She 
 was not merely disgusted; she was angry; and 
 in her anger she forgot herself and condescended 
 to sarcasm. There was one barrier the less to 
 be broken down. " We are a bad lot, I am 
 afraid, Miss Penrhyn," he replied, quietly; "but 
 keep your illusions while you can. You are 
 happier for them, and I would be the last to dis- 
 pel them." 
 
 "You are considerate," she retorted: " it is 
 more than possible you will not dispel my 
 illusions; there will not be " 
 
 " You mean to imply, delicately," he interrupted 
 her, " that you do not consider me worthy of 
 being added to the list of your acquaintances ? " 
 
 " I really have given the matter no thought, 
 and L do not see what advantage either side 
 could derive from further acquaintance." But 
 she colored slightly as she spoke, and turned to 
 him an angrily severe profile. 
 
 " Don't you think," he said and his calm, 
 drawling tone formed a contrast to her own lack 
 of control which she could not fail to appreciate
 
 36 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 " don't you think that you judge me with exag- 
 gerated harshness ? Do you think the life of 
 any one of these men who have surrounded you 
 to-night, and upon whom you certainly did not 
 frown, would bear inspection ? It would almost 
 appear as if I had personally incurred your dis- 
 pleasure, you are so very hard upon me. You 
 forget that my offense could not have any indi- 
 vidual application for you. Had I known you, 
 you might reasonably have been indignant had I 
 gone from you, a young girl, to things which you 
 held to be wrong. But I did not know you; you 
 must remember that. And as for the wrong 
 itself, I hope the knowledge of greater wrong 
 may never come to you. When you have lived 
 in the world a few years longer, I am very much 
 afraid you will look upon such things with an 
 only too careless eye." 
 
 The cruel allusion to her youth told, and the 
 girl's cheek flushed, as she threw back her head 
 with a spirited movement which delighted Dart- 
 mouth, while the lanterns in her eyes leaped up 
 afresh. Where had he seen those eyes before ? 
 
 "I don't know what your ideas of honor 
 may be in regard to the young ladies of your ac T 
 quaintance," she said, with an additional dash of 
 ice in her voice, " but it seems to me a peculiar 
 kind of honor which allows a man to insult his 
 hostess by making love to a married woman in 
 her house."
 
 What Dreams May Come. 37 
 
 " Pret-tygood for a baby! " thought Dartmouth. 
 " She could not have done that better if she had 
 been brought up Lady Langdon's daughter, in- 
 stead of having been under that general's tuition, 
 and emancipated from a life of seclusion, just about 
 six months. Decidedly, she is worth cultivating." 
 He looked at her reflectively. That he was in 
 utter disgrace admitted of not a doubt. Women 
 found little fault with him, as a rule. They had 
 shown themselves willing, with an aptitude which 
 savored of monotony, to take him on any terms; 
 and to be sat in judgment upon by a penniless 
 girl with the face and air of an angry goddess, had 
 a flavor of novelty about it decidedly thrilling. 
 He determined to conquer or die. Clever as she 
 was, she was still absolutely a child, and no match 
 for him. He placed his elbow on his knee and 
 leaned his head on his hand. 
 
 " Your rebuke is a very just one," he said, 
 sadly. "And I have only the poor excuse to 
 offer that in this wicked world of ours we grow 
 very callous, and forget those old codes of honor 
 which men were once so strict about, no matter 
 what the irregularities of their lives might be. I 
 am afraid it is quite true that I am not fit to 
 touch your hand; and indeed," he added hastily, 
 "it is a miserable business all round, and God 
 knows there is little enough in it." 
 
 She turned and regarded him with something 
 less of anger, something more of interest, in her 
 eyes.
 
 38 What Dreams Mav Come. 
 
 " Then, why do not you reform ? " she asked, 
 in a matter-of-fact tone. " Why do you remain 
 so bad, if you regret it ? " 
 
 " There is nothing else to do," gloomily. 
 ' Life is such a wretched bore that the only thing 
 to do is to seize what little spice there is in it; 
 and the spice, alas ! will never bear analysis." 
 
 " Are you unhappy?" she demanded. Her 
 eyes were still disapproving, but her voice was a 
 shade less cold. 
 
 He smiled, but at the same time he felt a little 
 ashamed of himself; the weapons were so trite, 
 and it was so easy to manage an unworldly-wise 
 and romantic girl. There was nothing to do but 
 go on, however. " No, I am not unhappy, Miss 
 Penrhyn," he said; "that is, not unhappy in the 
 sense you would mean. I am only tired of life. 
 That is all but it is enough." 
 
 " But you are very young," she said, innocently. 
 "You cannot yet be thirty." 
 
 He laughed shortly. " I am twenty-eight, Miss 
 Penrhyn and I am forty-five. You cannot 
 understand, and it is well you should not. But 
 this much I can tell you: I was born with a 
 wretched load of ennui on my spirits, and ajl 
 things pall after a brief experience. It has been 
 so since the first hour I can remember. My 
 grandmother used to tell me that I should wake 
 up some day and find myself a genius; that I re, 
 joiced in several pointed indications toward that
 
 What Dreams May Come 39 
 
 desirable end; that I had only to wait, and ample 
 compensation for the boredom of life would 
 come. But, alas ! I am twenty-eight, and there 
 are no signs of genius yet. I am merely a com- 
 monplace young man pursuing the most com- 
 monplace of lives but I am not going to bore 
 you by talking about myself any longer. I never 
 do. I do not know why I do so to-night. But 
 there is something about you which is strangely 
 sympathetic, in spite of your " he hesitated 
 "your unkindness." 
 
 She had kept her eyes implacably on the oppo- 
 site wall, but when he finished she turned to him 
 suddenly, and he saw that her face had percepti- 
 bly relaxed. 
 
 " You impress me very strangely," she said, 
 abruptly. " I am willing to tell you that frankly, 
 and I hardly understand it. You are doubtless 
 correct when you say I have no right to be angry 
 with you, and I suppose it is also true that you 
 are no worse than other men. When I pushed 
 aside that portiere to-night I felt an unreasoning 
 anger which it would be hard to account for. 
 Had it been "Lord Bective Hollington or Mr. 
 Bolton I I should not have cared. I should 
 not have been angry; I am sure of it. And 
 yet I never saw you before to-day, and had no 
 possible interest in you. I do not understand 
 it. I hardly know whether I like you very much 
 or hate you very much."
 
 40 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 He bent his head and looked down sharply 
 into her eyes. He was so used to the coquetry 
 and finesse of women ! Was she like the rest ? 
 But the eyes she had turned to him were sincere 
 to disquiet, and there was not a suggestion of 
 coquetry about her. 
 
 " Do not hate me," he said, softly, " for I would 
 give more for your good opinion than for that 
 of any woman I know. No, I do not mean 
 that for idle flattery. You may not realize it, 
 but you are very different from other women 
 Oh, bother ! " this last under his breath, as their 
 retreat was invaded by two indignant young men 
 who insisted upon the lawful rights of which 
 Dartmouth had so unblushingly deprived them. 
 There was nothing to do but resign himself to 
 his fate. 
 
 Knowing that a second uninterrupted conver- 
 sation would be impossible with her that night, 
 he left the house shortly after, not, however, be- 
 fore a parting word had assured him that though 
 she still might disapprove, he would have many 
 future opportunities to plead his cause, and, 
 furthermore, that she would not risk the loss of 
 his admiration by relating what she had seen. 
 When he reached his apartment he exchanged 
 his coat for a smoking-jacket, lit a cigar, and 
 throwing himself down on a sofa, gave himself 
 up to thoughts of Miss Penrhyn. 
 
 "A strange creature," he mentally announced.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 41 
 
 " If one can put one's trust in physiognomy, I 
 should say she had about ten times more in her 
 than dwells in ordinary women. She has no sus- 
 picion of it herself, however; she will make that 
 discovery later on. I should like to have the 
 power to render myself invisible; but no, I beg 
 pardon, I should like to be present in astral 
 body when her nature awakens. I have always 
 wanted to study the successive psychological 
 evolutions of a woman in love. Not of the ordi- 
 nary compound of the domestic and the fash- 
 ionable; there is nothing exciting in that; and 
 besides, our realistic novelists have rendered such 
 researches on my part superfluous; but of a type, 
 small, but each member of which is built up 
 of infinite complexities like this girl. The 
 nature would awaken with a sudden, mighty 
 shock, not creep toward the light with slow, well- 
 regulated steps but, bah! what is the use of in- 
 dulging in boneless imaginings ? One can never 
 tell what a woman of that sort will think and feel, 
 until her experience has been a part of his own. 
 And there is no possibility of my falling in love 
 with her, even did I wish it, which I certainly do 
 not. The man who fascinates is not the man who 
 loves. Pardon my modesty, most charming of 
 grandmothers, if your soul really lurks behind 
 that wonderful likeness of yours, as I sometimes 
 think it does, but a man cannot have the double 
 power of making many others feel and of feeling
 
 42 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 himself. At least, so it seems to me. Love 
 lightly roused is held as lightly, and one loses 
 one's respect for even the passion in the abstract. 
 Of what value can a thing be which springs into 
 life for a trick of manner, an atom or two more of 
 that negative quality called personal magnetism, 
 while wiser and better men pass by unnoticed ? 
 One naturally asks, What is love ? A spiritual 
 enthusiasm which a cold-blooded analyst would 
 call sentimentality, or its correlative, a fever of 
 the senses ? Neither is a very exalted set of con- 
 ditions. I have been through both more than 
 once, and if my attacks have been light, I 
 have been the better enabled to study my fair 
 inspiration. I never discovered that she felt 
 more deeply; simply more strongly, more tem- 
 pestuously, after the nature of women. Her 
 feelings were not more complex, they were 
 merely more strongly accentuated. A woman in 
 love imagines that she is the pivot on which the 
 world revolves. A general may immortalize him- 
 self, an emperor be assassinated and his empire 
 plunged into a French Revolution, and her pass- 
 ing interest is not roused; nor is she unapt to 
 wonder how others can be interested in matters 
 so purely impersonal. She thinks she loves as 
 no woman ever loved before, and sometimes she 
 succeeds in making the man think so too. But 
 when a man has gone through this sort of thing 
 a couple of dozen times, he becomes impressed
 
 //'//<// Dreams J/<JT Come. 43 
 
 with the monotony, the shallowness, and the 
 racial resemblance, so to speak, of the divine pas- 
 sion; and his own capacity for indulging in it 
 diminishes in proportion. If Miss Penrhyn is 
 capable of anything wider and deeper and higher 
 than her average sister, I have met her too late 
 to be inspired with anything beyond passing curi- 
 osity. In fact, I doubt if I could be capable of 
 so much as indulging in the surmise had I never 
 known my grandmother. There was a woman 
 unique in her generation. So strong was her 
 individuality that I was forced to appreciate it, 
 even in the days when I used to make her life a 
 burden by planting her silver spoons in the rose- 
 garden and re-setting her favorite cuttings wrong 
 side up. I wish she had lived longer; it would 
 have been both a pleasure and a profit to have 
 studied and analyzed her. And how I should 
 like to know her history ! That she had one 
 there is no doubt. The lines of repression in her 
 face were the strongest I have ever seen, to say 
 nothing of the night I found her standing over 
 the Byzantine chest with her hands full of yellow 
 papers. There were no lines of repression in 
 her face just then; she looked fairly murderous. 
 She did not see me, and I left with a brevity 
 worthy of its cause. I should like to know who 
 wrote those letters. I looked for them after her 
 death, but she had either destroyed them or else 
 that old Byzantine chest has a secret drawer. If
 
 44 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 it has I'll discover it some day when time hangs 
 heavily. 
 
 " No," he continued, settling himself down 
 more comfortably among his pillows, and 
 tossing the end of his cigar into the grate, " I 
 shall marry some day, undoubtedly, but I must 
 find a woman with the brains and charm of my 
 grandmother. This girl, they say, is brilliant, 
 and certainly she cut me up sharply enough to- 
 night; but she would be altogether too much to 
 handle for a lifetime. It would be very pleasant 
 for a time, but a deuced bore later on. What a 
 beauty she is, though! I cannot get her out of 
 my mind. She has been posing before my men- 
 tal vision all the time I have been trying to think 
 about something else. Those eyes gods ! 
 And what a figure ! What ' 
 
 With a nervous, precipitate motion, he rose to 
 his feet and drew in his breath, as if to throw a 
 sudden load from his chest. He stood irresolute 
 for a moment, then revolving slowly , on his heel, 
 walked, as if independently of his own volition, 
 over to his desk. He felt very strangely; he 
 did not remember to have ever felt so strangely 
 before. His head had become suddenly con- 
 fused, but at the same time he was aware that 
 his brain had thrown open its doors to a new 
 arrival, and that the visitor was trying to make 
 itself heard. It appeared to be a visitor of 
 great importance, and Dartmouth was con-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 45 
 
 scious that it had presented itself to his percep- 
 tions in the form of an extraordinarily strong 
 impulse, a great and clamorous Desire. He had 
 been aware of the same desire before, but only 
 in an abstract way, a general purposeless long- 
 ing; but now this peremptory, loudly-knocking 
 consciousness was vaguely suggesting another 
 just behind. It would almost seem, if it were 
 not too preposterous a supposition, as if that 
 second struggling consciousness were trying to 
 announce itself under the high-sounding title of 
 what ? He could not formulate it. If his 
 brain were only not so confused ! What could 
 so suddenly have affected him ? He was always 
 so clear-headed and logical. Was he going to 
 be ill ? When he reached his desk he sat down 
 before it and mechanically took up his pen. He 
 leaned his head on his hand, like a man in a state 
 of mental exhaustion, and closed his eyes for a 
 moment. Then he opened them wide, with an 
 exclamation which was almost a cry; and of his 
 usual calm repose there was not a trace remain- 
 ing. He leaned forward breathlessly and put his 
 pen to the paper. " Her eyes! Her skin! Her 
 form! " he muttered uncertainly. " Her her 
 her Oh! what is it? Why cannot I say it? It 
 has come at last she was right after all but the 
 words the words why will not they come ? 
 The music is there a great rhythm and har- 
 mony but the words are floating about like
 
 46 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 wraiths of mist. If I could only grasp and crys- 
 tallize them, and set them to that wonderful 
 music, the world the world would rise at last 
 and call me great! Her eyes her hair oh, my 
 God, what is it?" He threw down his pen and 
 staggered to his feet. His face was blanched 
 and drawn, and his eyes had lost their steady 
 light. He grasped the chair to save himself 
 from falling; he had lost over himself both phys- 
 ical and mental control. It seemed to him that 
 two beings, two distinct entities, were at war with- 
 in his brain that new, glorious consciousness, 
 and a tangible power above, which forced it down 
 with an iron hand down down into the depths 
 of his mind, where its cries for speech came up 
 in faint, inarticulate murmurs. And it tried and 
 tried, that strange new thing, to struggle from 
 its dungeon and reach the wide, free halls of his 
 thought, but it could not; it beat against that 
 unrelaxing iron hand only to fall back again and 
 again. And it sang and sang and sang, in spite 
 of its struggles and captivity. The faint, sweet 
 echo came up if he could but catch the words! 
 If he could but dash aside that iron hand, and 
 let his brain absorb them ! Surely a word or two 
 must force their way yes! yes! they had come ! 
 "Her face! her form!" He tore open his waist- 
 coat; his lungs felt as if they had been ex- 
 hausted. Then, how he never knew, he man- 
 aged to reach his sofa, and fell face downward
 
 WJiat Dreams A fay Come. 47 
 
 upon it; and the next morning, when his valet 
 came in and drew aside the curtains and let in 
 the light of mid-day, he found him there as he 
 had fallen. 
 
 III. 
 
 HAROLD DARTMOUTH came of a family cele- 
 brated throughout its history for producing men 
 of marked literary and political ability. Few 
 generations had passed without a Dartmouth dis- 
 tinguishing himself, and those members of the 
 family less gifted were not in the habit of having 
 their fine intellectual qualities called to account. 
 The consequence was that their young descendant, 
 who inherited all the family cleverness, although 
 as yet he had betrayed the possession of none of 
 its higher gifts, paid the penalty of his mental 
 patrimony. His brain was abnormally active, 
 both through conditions of heredity and personal 
 incitement; and the cerebral excitation neces- 
 sarily produced resulted not infrequently in vio- 
 lent reaction, which took the form of protracted 
 periods of melancholy. These attacks of melan- 
 choly had begun during his early school-days, 
 when, a remarkably bright but extremely wild boy, 
 he had been invariably fired with ambition as ex- 
 aminations approached, and obliged to cram to 
 make up for lost time. As years went by they 
 grew with his growth, and few months passed 
 without an attack of the blues more or less vio-
 
 48 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 lent, no matter how brief. They came after 
 hours of brooding over his desire to distinguish 
 himself, and his fatal want of ability; they came 
 during his intervals of purely intellectual disgust 
 with himself and with life; but more frequently 
 still they came upon him from no apparent cause 
 whatever. They were a part of his personality, 
 just as humor, or light, unthinking gaiety, or a 
 constantly bubbling wit may form the predomin- 
 ating characteristic of another man. 
 
 For a week after the night of his futile impulse 
 to put into shape the nebulous verse which had 
 tormented his brain, no one saw Harold Dart- 
 mouth. The violent shock and strain had in- 
 duced an attack of mental and spiritual depres- 
 sion which amounted to prostration, and he lay 
 on his sofa taking no notice of the days as they 
 slipped by, eating little and speaking to no one. 
 At first Jones, his man-servant, was not particu- 
 larly disturbed. He had brought Dartmouth up, 
 and had come to look upon his moods as a matter 
 of course. He therefore confined himself to forc- 
 ing his master to take his food and to parrying 
 the curiosity of the French servants; he knew 
 Dartmouth's temper too well to venture to call a 
 doctor, and he hoped that in a few days the 
 mood would wear itself out. But at the end of a 
 week he became seriously alarmed. He had 
 spent the last day but one in a desperate and 
 fruitless attempt to rouse Dartmouth, and had
 
 What Dreams May Come. 49 
 
 used every expedient his ingenuity could sug- 
 gest. Finally, at his wits' end, he determined to 
 call in the help of Lord Bective Hollington, who 
 was Dartmouth's most intimate friend, and had 
 lived with him and his moods for months to- 
 gether. He came to this decision late -on the 
 night of the seventh day, and at eleven the next 
 morning he presented himself at Hollington's 
 apartments in the Rue Lincoln. Hollington was 
 still in bed and reading the morning paper, but 
 he put it down at once. 
 
 " Send him in," he said. " Something is the 
 matter with Harold," he continued to himself. 
 " Something unusual has been the matter with 
 him all the week, when he wouldn't even see me. 
 Well, Jones, what is it ? " as that perturbed 
 worthy entered. " You are an early visitor." 
 
 " Oh ! my Lord !" exclaimed Jones, tearfully; 
 " something dreadful hails Master 'Arold." 
 
 " What is it ? " demanded Hollington, quickly. 
 "Is he ill?" 
 
 Jones shook his head. " No, my Lord; I 
 wish 'ee was. 'Ee's worse than hill. 'Ee's got 
 one of 'is moods." 
 
 " Poor Harold ! I thought he had got over 
 all that since he had given himself over to the 
 distractions of wine, woman, and song. I haven't 
 seen him in one of his moods for three or four 
 years." 
 
 " Ah, sir, I 'ave, then. 'Ee don't 'ave them so
 
 50 What Dreams Mav Come. 
 
 frequent like before he begun to travel, but 
 hevery wunst in a while 'ee will be terrible for 
 two hor three days; but I never see hanything 
 like this before, heven at Crumford 'All. 'Ee 'as 
 never spoke for a week; not since the night of 
 the ball hat the Russian Legation." 
 
 " By Jove ! you don't mean it. I thought he 
 was on a 'private tear,' as the Americans say; but 
 I don't like this at all. Just clear out, and I'll 
 be dressed and over in his rooms in less than half 
 an hour." And he sprang out of bed before 
 Jones had closed the door. 
 
 He was but a few moments dressing, as he had 
 promised, and was at Dartmouth's apartment 
 before Jones had time to become impatient, 
 nervous as he was. He pulled aside the por- 
 tiere of the salon and looked in. The curtains 
 were drawn and the room was dark, but on a 
 sofa near the window he saw his friend lying. 
 He picked his way over through the studiously 
 disordered furniture and touched Dartmouth on 
 the shoulder. 
 
 " Hal ! " he said, " Hal !" 
 
 Dartmouth opened his eyes and looked up. 
 "Is it you, Becky?" he said, languidly. "Go 
 away and let me alone." But his words and 
 manner indicated that the attack was at last 
 " wearing itself out." 
 
 " I will do nothing of the sort," replied Hol- 
 lington. " Get up off that sofa this moment.
 
 What Dreams May Come, 51 
 
 A week ! I am ashamed of vou. What would 
 the old lady say ? " 
 
 " She would understand," murmured Dart- 
 mouth. " She. always understood. I wish she 
 were here now." 
 
 " I wish she were. She would soon have you 
 out of this. Get up. Don't be a fool." 
 
 " I am not a fool. I have got one of the 
 worst of the old attacks, and I can't shake it off; 
 that is all. Go away, and let me fight it out by 
 myself." 
 
 " I will not move from this room, if I stay 
 here for six months, until you go with me. So 
 make up your mind to it." And he threw him- 
 self into an easy-chair, and lighting a cigar, pro- 
 ceeded leisurely to smoke it. 
 
 Dartmouth turned uneasily once or twice. 
 "You know I can't bear anyone near me," he 
 said; " I want to be alone." 
 
 " You have been alone long enough. I will 
 do as I have said." 
 
 There was silence for a few moments, and 
 Dartmouth's restlessness increased. Hollington 
 watched him closely, and after a time handed 
 him a cigar and offered him a light. Dartmouth 
 accepted both mechanically, and for a time the 
 two men smoked in silence. When Dartmouth 
 finished he rose to his feet. 
 
 " Very well," he said, " have your own way. 
 Wait until I dress and I will go out with you."
 
 52 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 He went into his dressing-room and returned 
 about an hour later, during which time Holling- 
 ton had thrown back the curtains and written a 
 couple of letters. Dartmouth was still haggard 
 and very pale, but his face had been shaved and 
 he looked something like himself once more. 
 Hollington rose and threw down his pen at 
 once. 
 
 " I will drop in on our way back and finish this 
 letter," he said. " You must get out of the 
 house as quickly as possible. By Jove ! how 
 bad you look ! " He put his hand on his friend's 
 shoulder and looked at him a moment. He was 
 the average Englishman in most of his details, 
 tall, well-built, with a good profile, and a 
 ruddy Saxon face. His individual character- 
 istics were an eternal twinkle in his eye, a fore- 
 head with remarkably well-developed reflectives, 
 and a very square chin and jaw. Just now the 
 twinkle was less aggressive and his face had 
 softened noticeably. " There is no help for it, 
 I suppose, Hal, is there ? " he said. 
 
 Dartmouth looked back at him with a smile, 
 and a good deal of affection in his eyes. " No, 
 old fellow," he replied; " I am afraid there is 
 not. But they are rarely as bad as this last. 
 And thank you for coming." 
 
 They went out together and walked to the 
 Cafe Anglais on the Boulevard des Italiens. 
 The air was keen and cold, the walk a long one,
 
 What Dreams May Come. 53 
 
 and Dartmouth felt like another man by the time 
 he sat down to breakfast. One or two other men 
 joined them. Hollington was unusually witty, 
 the conversation was general and animated, and 
 when Dartmouth left the cafe the past week 
 seemed an ugly dream. In the afternoon he 
 met the wife of the American Consul-General, 
 Mrs. Raleigh, in the Bois, and learned from her 
 that Margaret Talbot had left Paris. This 
 left him free to remain; and when Mrs. Raleigh 
 reminded him that her doors were open that 
 evening, he asked permission at once to present 
 himself. Mrs. Raleigh not only had a distin- 
 guished and interesting salon, but she casually 
 remarked that she expected Miss Penrhyn, and 
 Dartmouth felt a strong desire to see the girl 
 again. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WHEN, a few hours later, Dartmouth entered 
 Mrs. Raleigh's salon, he saw Miss Penrhyn sur- 
 rounded by some half-dozen men, and talking 
 with the abandon of a pleased child, her eyes 
 sparkling, her cheeks flushed. As he went over 
 to her the flush faded slightly, but she held out 
 her hand and smiled up into his eyes. 
 
 " You have been ill," she murmured, sympa- 
 thetically. "You look so still." 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I have been ill; otherwise I 
 should have made an effort to see you before. I
 
 54 IV hat Dreams May Come. 
 
 suppose I cannot get a word with you to-night. 
 May I call on you to-morrow morning ? " 
 
 "Yes, you may come." 
 
 "Thank you. And there will not be a dozen 
 other men there ? " 
 
 She smiled. " I do not think there will be 
 anyone else. I rarely receive in the morning." 
 
 " But are you sure ? " 
 
 He had a long sweep of black lash, through 
 which the clear blue of his eyes had a way of 
 shining with a pleading, softening lustre, im- 
 mensely effective. It was an accepted fact that 
 when Mr. Dartmouth turned on this battery of 
 eyes and lash, resistance was a forgotten art 
 and protest a waste of time. Miss Penrhyn did 
 not prove an exception to the rule. She hesi- 
 tated, then answered, with a little laugh, as if 
 amused at herself: " Well, yes, I am sure." 
 
 " Very well, then; remember, I look upon that 
 as a promise. And I will try to get a word with 
 you later, but there is no hope now." 
 
 He moved off and, leaning against the oppo- 
 'site wall, covertly watched her, while ostensibly 
 listening with due sympathy to the hopes and 
 fears of an old friend and embryo author. In a 
 moment he made a discovery of his friend's 
 confidence I regret to say he heard not one 
 word she did not treat him as she treated other 
 men. Well-bred as she was, there was a percep- 
 tible embarrassment in her manner whenever he
 
 IV hat Dreams May Come. 55 
 
 addressed her; but with these other men she was 
 talking and smiling without a trace of effort or 
 restraint. He knew what it meant. He was 
 thoroughly aware that he was a man of extraor- 
 dinary magnetism, and he had seen his power 
 over a great many women. Ordinarily, to a man 
 so sated with easy success as Harold Dartmouth, 
 the certainty of conquest would have strangled 
 the fancy, but there was something about this 
 girl which awakened in him an interest he did 
 not pretend to define, except that he found her 
 more beautiful, and believed her to be more 
 original, than other women. He was anxious to 
 have a longer conversation with her, and ascer- 
 tain whether or not he was correct in his latter 
 supposition. He did not want to marry, and she 
 was too good to flirt with; but platonics were 
 left. And platonics with Miss Penrhyn sug- 
 gested variety. 
 
 He also made another discovery. Someone 
 played an interminable piece of classic music. 
 During its recital it was not possible for Miss 
 Penrhyn to talk with the men about her, and 
 as the animation faded from her face, he noticed 
 the same preoccupied look overspread it which 
 had characterized it the night she had entered 
 the ball-room at the Legation. Something 
 troubled her, but to Dartmouth's quick eye it 
 was not an active trouble; it was more like a 
 shadow which took possession of her face in its
 
 56 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 moments of repose with the quiet assurance of a 
 dweller of long standing. Possibly she herself 
 was habitually forgetful of its cause; but the 
 cause had struck deep into the roots of her 
 nature, and its shadow had become a part of her 
 beauty. Dartmouth speculated much and widely, 
 but rejected the hypothesis of a lover. She had 
 never loved for a moment; and in spite of his 
 platonic predilections, this last of his conclusions 
 held a very perceptible flavor of satisfaction. 
 When the classic young lady had gracefully ac- 
 knowledged the raptures she had evoked, and 
 tripped back to her seat, Miss Penrhyn was 
 asked to sing, and then Dartmouth saw his 
 opportunity; he captured her when she had 
 finished, and bore her off to the conservatory 
 before anyone could interfere. 
 
 "You sing charmingly," he said. "Will you 
 sing for me to-morrow ?" 
 
 " If you can stretch flattery to that extent, 
 with Patti at the Grand Opera House." 
 
 " I have been listening to Patti for fifteen 
 years, and man loves variety. I wish I could tell 
 where I have seen you before," he continued, ab- 
 ruptly. "Do you look like your mother? I 
 may have seen her in my youth." 
 
 Her face flushed a sudden, painful red, and 
 then turned very pale. " I do not remember my 
 mother," she stammered. "She died when I was 
 quite young."
 
 What Dreams May Come. 57 
 
 " Poor thing! " thought Dartmouth. " How 
 girls do grieve for an unknown mother! " " But 
 you have seen her picture ? " he said, aloud. 
 
 " Yes, I have seen her pictures. They are 
 dark, like myself. But that is all." 
 
 " You must have had a lonely childhood, 
 brought up all by yourself in that gloomy old 
 castle I have heard described." 
 
 She colored again and crushed a fern-leaf ner- 
 vously between her fingers. " Yes, it was lone- 
 some. Yes those old castles always are." 
 
 " By the way I remember my mother spent a 
 summer down there once, some twelve or thir- 
 teen years ago, and it comes back to me now 
 I remember having heard her speak of Rhyd- 
 Ahvyn as the most picturesque castle in Wales. 
 She must have known your mother, of course. 
 And you must have known the children. Why 
 was I not there ? " 
 
 " I do not remember," she said, rising sud- 
 denly to her feet, and turning so pale that Dart- 
 mouth started to his in alarm. " Come; let us 
 go % back to the salon." 
 
 " There is some mystery," thought Dartmouth. 
 " Have I stumbled upon a family skeleton ? 
 Poor child!" But aloud he said, " No, do not 
 go yet; I want to talk to you." And when he 
 had persuaded her to sit down once more, he 
 exerted himself to amuse her, and before long 
 had the satisfaction of seeing that she had for-
 
 5 8 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 gotten her agitation. It did not take him long 
 to discover that she had read a great deal and 
 that her favorite reading had been travels, and 
 he entertained her with graphic recitals of such 
 of his own varied experience as he thought most 
 likely to interest her. She listened with flat- 
 tering attention and a natural and keen sense 
 of humor, and he was stimulated to a good 
 deal more effort than habit prompted. " You 
 will enjoy travelling," he said, finally; "and 
 you will not travel like other women. You will 
 see something besides picture-galleries, and 
 churches, and Sons marches. I believe that you 
 would realize what it is to be an atom of to-day 
 in the presence of twenty centuries." 
 
 She smiled up at him with quick sympathy. 
 " Yes," she said, " I believe one must more fre- 
 quently be awed than pleased, or even enrap- 
 tured. And I can imagine how even the most 
 self-content of men, if he absorb the meaning of 
 Europe, must feel his insignificance. If he has 
 wit enough to reflect that all these represented 
 ages, with their extraordinary results, abstract 
 and concrete, have come and gone with no aid 
 of his; that no prophet ever whispered his 
 name among the thousands of great in every 
 conceivable destiny; that he is, mentally and 
 physically, simply a result of evolution and civ- 
 ilization, not, in any way worth mentioning, a 
 cause, he will be apt to reflect as well upon how
 
 What Dreams May Come. 59 
 
 many men, all told, have ever heard of his exist- 
 ence, or who besides his grandchildren will re- 
 member him a generation hence. He will prob- 
 ably wish that arithmetic had never been in- 
 vented. Or if he be one of the great of earth, 
 he is only one after all, and, if he be in danger 
 of bursting from inflation, he can be grateful for 
 a timely reminder that there are several millions 
 on the globe who have never heard of him, and a 
 few millions more who do not and never will take 
 the faintest interest in him or his career. But it 
 needs the presence of twenty centuries to bring 
 the fact of man's individual insignificance home 
 to most of us." 
 
 " She is clever," thought Dartmouth, as he dis- 
 missed his brougham a little later and walked 
 home alone. " Very un-modern and most repre- 
 hensibly unconventional, in so much as she 
 thinks, and develops her mental muscles; but 
 very charming, notwithstanding. There is an 
 incongruity about her, however, which is almost 
 absurd. She has been brought up in such seclu- 
 sion and under the sole tuition of a man not 
 only a pedant, but who has never stepped 
 through the gates of the last generation that 
 she reminds one of those fair English dames who 
 used to prowl about their parks with the Phsedo 
 under their arm and long for a block on which 
 to float down to prosperity; Plato had quite 
 enough to do to sail for himself. And upon this
 
 60 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 epitomized abstraction of the sixteenth century, 
 this mingling of old-time stateliness, of womanly 
 charm, of tougher mental fibre, are superimposed 
 the shallow and purely objective attributes of the 
 nineteenth-century belle and woman of fashion. 
 It is. almost a shock to hear her use our modern 
 vernacular, and when she relapses into the some- 
 what stilted language in which she is still accus- 
 tomed to think, it is a positive relief. She is 
 conscious that she is apt to be a little high-flown, 
 and when she forgets herself and is natural, she 
 quickly pulls herself in with a round turn, which 
 is an apology in itself. Upon such occasions a 
 man wants to get his fingers about the throat of 
 the world. She has acquired all the little arts 
 and mannerisms of the London drawing-room 
 girl, and although they do not sit ungracefully 
 upon her, because she is innately graceful, and 
 too clever to assume a virtue which she cannot 
 assimilate, still it is like a foreigner who speaks 
 your language to perfection in all but accent, and 
 whom you long to hear in his own tongue. Put 
 her back in her Welsh castle, and the scales 
 would fall from her as from a mermaid who 
 loves. If she returns to her father at the end of 
 the season, I think I will call upon her six months 
 later. She should go now, though; scales are 
 apt to corrode. But what is the mystery about 
 the mother? Did she elope with the coachman ? 
 But, no; that is strictly a modern freak of fash-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 61 
 
 ion. Perhaps she died in a mad-house. Not 
 improbable, if she had anything of the nature of 
 this girl in her, and Sir Iltyd sowed the way with 
 thorns too sharp. Poor girl! she is too young 
 for mysteries, whatever it is. I shall like to 
 know her better, but she is so intense that she 
 makes me feel frivolous. I am never intense 
 except when I have the blues, and intensity, with 
 my peculiar mental anatomy, is a thing to be 
 avoided. In what is invariably the last chapter 
 of those attacks of morbid dissatisfaction I shall 
 some day. feel an intense desire to blow out my 
 brains, and shall probably succumb. I wonder 
 if she will induce another rhyming attack to- 
 night. Was that night a dream or a reality ? 
 Could I have had a short but sharp attack of 
 brain fever ? Perhaps the less I think about it 
 the better; but it is decidedly hard to be gifted 
 with the instincts of a poet and denied the 
 verbal formulation. And it was the most pain- 
 fully realistic, aggressively material thing, that 
 conflict in my brain, that mortal ever experi- 
 enced. That, however, may have been a mere 
 figment of my excited imagination. But what 
 excited my imagination ? That is the question, 
 [f I remember aright, I was mentally discoursing 
 with some enthusiasm upon Miss Penrhyn's 
 charms, but in strict impartiality it cannot be 
 said that I was excited. The excitement was 
 like that produced by an onslaught from behind.
 
 6 2 IVhat Dreams 31 ay Come. 
 
 It is the more surprising, as I think it may be 
 conceded that I have myself pretty well in hand 
 by this time, and that my nerves, unruly as 
 nature saw fit to make them, are now my very 
 abject slaves. Occasionally one of our fiction 
 carpenters flies off at a tangent and treats us to a 
 series of intellectual gymnastics, the significance 
 of which so we are called upon to digest is that 
 the soul of one dead, finding its present clime 
 too warm or too cold or having left something 
 undone on earth, takes temporary and summary 
 possession of an unfortunate still in the flesh, 
 and through this unhappy medium endeavors to 
 work his will. Perhaps that is what is the mat- 
 ter with me. Pollok, perchance, who died in his 
 flower, thinking that he had not given the world 
 a big enough pill to swallow, wants to concoct 
 another dose in my presumably vacant brain. I 
 appreciate the compliment, but I disdain to be 
 Pollok's mouthpiece: I will be original or noth- 
 ing. Besides, it is deuced uncomfortable. And 
 I should like to know if there is anything in life 
 more bitter than the sense, even momentary, of 
 loss of self-mastery. Well, as I remarked a few 
 moments since, the less I think about it the bet- 
 ter, considering my unfortunate peculiarities. I 
 will go and see Miss Penrhyn to-morrow; that 
 will be sufficiently distracting for the present.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 63 
 
 HE found her the next day in a pretty morning- 
 room, dressed in a long white gown, with a single 
 great yellow rose at her throat. She had a piece 
 of tapestry in her hand, and as she rose to greet 
 him, the plain, heavy folds of her gown clinging 
 about her, and her dark hair bound closely around 
 her head with a simplicity that was almost severe, 
 Dartmouth again felt a humorous sense of hav- 
 ing suddenly stepped into a page of a past 
 century. 
 
 " What are you doing ? " he said, as he took a 
 chair opposite her. " Women never make tap- 
 estry real tapestry in these days. You remind 
 me of Lady Jane Grey. Shall I get a volume of 
 Greek and read it to you ? " 
 
 She laughed. " I fear it would literally be 
 Greek to me. Latin and I had a fierce and des- 
 perate war, but I conquered in the end. With 
 the Greek, however, the war was extremely 
 brief, and he marched off with colors flying, and 
 never condescended to renew the engagement." 
 
 " For all mercies make us duly thankful. A 
 woman who knows Greek is like a hot-house 
 grape; a mathematically perfect thing, but 
 scentless and flavorless." 
 
 " You are consoling; and, indeed, I cannot see 
 that it would have done me much good; it cer-
 
 64 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 tainly would not have increased my popularity 
 among your exacting sex. You are the first man 
 to whom I have dared acknowledge I know 
 Latin. Lady Langdon was kind enough to give 
 me elaborate warnings and instructions before 
 she launched me into society. Among other 
 things, she constantly reiterated, ' Never let a 
 man suspect that you know anything, my dear. 
 He will fly from you as a hare to cover. I want 
 you to be a belle, and you must help me.' I nat- 
 urally asked her what I was to talk about, and she 
 promptly replied: ' Nothing. Study the Ameri- 
 can girl; they have the most brilliant way of jab- 
 bering meaningless recitativos of any tribe on 
 the face of the earth. Every sentence is an epi- 
 gram with the point left out. They are like the 
 effervescent part of a bottle of soda-water.' 
 This was while we were still in Wales; and she 
 sent for six books by two of those American 
 novelists who are supposed to be the expound- 
 ers-in-chief of the American girl at home and 
 abroad, and made me read them. It nearly 
 killed me, but I did it; and I learned a valuable 
 lesson. I hated the American girl, but I felt as 
 if I had been boiled in soda-water and every 
 pore of my body had absorbed it. I felt ecstati- 
 cally frivolous, and commonplace, and flashing, 
 and sizzling. And I assure you this is a fact, 
 although you may not give me credit for such 
 grim determination and concentration of purpose
 
 What Dreams May Come. 65 
 
 but I never eat my breakfast before I have 
 read an entire chapter from one of those two 
 authors; it adjusts my mental tone for the day 
 and keeps me in proper condition." 
 
 Dartmouth threw back his head and gave vent 
 to the heartiest burst of laughter he had in- 
 dulged in for years. " Upon my word, you are 
 original," he exclaimed, delightedly; " and for 
 heaven's sake, don't try to be anything else. 
 You could not be an American girl if you tried 
 for a century, for the reason that you have too 
 many centuries behind you. The American girl 
 is charming, exquisite, a perfect flower but 
 thin. She is like the first fruit of a new tree 
 planted in new soil. Her flavor is as subtle and 
 vanishing as pistachio, but there is no richness, 
 no depth, no mellowness, no suggestion of gener- 
 ations of grafting, or of orchards whose very sites 
 are forgotten. The soda-water simile is good, 
 but the American girl, in her actual existence 
 not in her verbal photographs, I grant you is 
 worthy of a better. She is more like one glass 
 of champagne-/rtf///, momentarily stimulating, 
 but quickly forgotten. When I was in America, 
 I met the most charming women in New York 
 I did not spend two weeks, all told, in Washing- 
 ton and New York is the concentrated essence, 
 the pinnacle of American civilization and achiev- 
 ment. But although I frequently talked to one 
 or another of those women for five hours at a
 
 66 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 time without a suggestion of fatigue, I always 
 had the same sensation in regard to them that I 
 had in regard to their waists while dancing they 
 were unsatisfactory, intangible. I never could 
 be sure I really held a woman in my arms, and I 
 never could remember a word I had exchanged 
 with them. But they are charming that word 
 describes them 'down to the ground.' " 
 
 " That word 'thin ' is good, too," she replied; 
 " and I think it describes their literature better 
 than any other. They write beautifully those 
 Americans, they are witty, they are amusing, 
 they are entertaining, they delineate character 
 with a master hand; they give us an exact idea 
 of their peculiar environment and conditions; 
 and the way they handle dialect is a marvel; but 
 they are thin; they ring hollow; they are like 
 sketches in pen-and-ink; there is no color, no 
 warmth, and above all, no perspective. I don't 
 know that they are even done in sharp black-and- 
 white; to me the pervading tone is gray. The 
 American author depresses me; he makes me 
 feel commonplace and new and unballasted. I 
 always feel as if I were the ' millionth woman in 
 superfluous herds'; and when one of those ter- 
 rible American authors attacks my type, and 
 carves me up for the delectation of the public, I 
 shall go back to Wales, nor ever emerge from my 
 towers again. And they are so cool and calm 
 and deliberate, and so horribly exact, even the
 
 What Dreams May Come. 67 
 
 lesser lights. They always remind me of a med- 
 ical student watching the workings of the ex- 
 posed nervous system of a chloroformed hare." 
 
 Dartmouth looked at her with some intensity 
 in his gaze. " I am glad your ideas are so sin- 
 gularly like my own," he said. "It is rather 
 remarkable they should be, but so it is. You 
 have even a way of putting your thoughts that 
 strikes me as familiar, and which, out of my nat- 
 ural egotism, I find attractive. But I wish you 
 would go back to your old castle; the world will 
 spoil you." 
 
 " I shall return in a month or two now; my 
 father is lonely without me." 
 
 " I suppose he spoils you," said Dartmouth, 
 smiling. " I imagine you were an abominable 
 infant. Tell me of some of the outrageous things 
 you used to do. I was called the worst child 
 in three counties; but, I doubt not, your ex- 
 ploits discounted mine, as the Americans say." 
 
 " Oh, mine are too bad to relate," she ex- 
 claimed, with a nervous laugh, and coloring 
 swiftly, as she had done the night before. " But 
 you were ill for a whole week, were you not ? 
 Was it anything serious ? " 
 
 Dartmouth felt a sudden impulse to tell her of 
 his strange experience. He was not given to 
 making confidences, but he felt en rapport with 
 this girl as he had never felt with man or 
 woman before. He had a singular feeling, when
 
 68 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 talking with or listening to her, of losing his 
 sense of separateness. It was not that he felt 
 de-individualized, but that he had an accession 
 of personality. It was pleasant because it was 
 novel, but at the same time it was uncomfortable 
 because it was a trifle unnatural. He smiled a 
 little to himself. Was it a case of affinity after 
 all ? But he had no time to analyze. She was 
 waiting for an answer, and in a moment he 
 found himself yielding to his impulse and giving 
 her a graphic account of his peculiar visitation. 
 
 At first she merely dropped her tapestry and 
 listened attentively, smiling and blushing a 
 little when he told her what had immediately 
 preceded the impulse to write. But gradually the 
 delicate pink left her face, and she began to 
 move in the spasmodic, uncontrollable way of a 
 person handling an electric battery. She clasped 
 the arms of her chair with such force that her 
 arms looked twisted and rigid, and finally she bent 
 slowly forward, gazing up into his face with eyes 
 expanded to twice their natural size and not a 
 vestige of color in her cheek or lips: she looked 
 like a corpse still engaged in the mechanical act of 
 gazing on the scene of agony which had preceded 
 its death. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and 
 threw out her hands. "Stop!" she cried; 
 "stop ! '' 
 
 " What is it ? " he demanded, rising to his 
 feet in amazement; he had been watching her
 
 What Dreams May Come. 69 
 
 with more or less surprise for some time. 
 " I am afraid I have frightened you and made 
 you nervous. I had better have kept my con- 
 fidence to myself." 
 
 " No, no, " she cried, throwing back her 
 head and clasping her hands about it; 
 " it is not that I am frightened only it 
 was so strange ! While you were talking it 
 seemed oh ! I cannot describe it ! as if you 
 were telling me something which I knew as well 
 as yourself. When you spoke it seemed to me 
 that I knew and could put into words the wonder- 
 ful verse-music which was battling upward to 
 reach your brain. They were, they were I 
 know them so well. I have known them always; 
 but I cannot I cannot catch their meaning ! " 
 Suddenly she stepped backward, dropped her 
 hands, and colored painfully. " It is all purest 
 nonsense, of course," she said, in her ordinary 
 tone and manner, except for its painful embar- 
 rasment. " It is only your strong, picturesque 
 way of telling it which presented it as vividly to 
 my mind as if it were an experience of my own. 
 I never so much as dreamed of it before you 
 began to speak." 
 
 Dartmouth did not answer her for a moment. 
 His own mind was in something of a tumult. In 
 telling the story he had felt, not a recurrence of 
 its conditions, but a certain sense of their influ- 
 ence; and the girl's manner and words were ex-
 
 jo What Dreams May Come. 
 
 traordinary. It could hardly be possible, even 
 in cold blood, to understand their meaning. She 
 was indisputably not acting. What she had 
 said was very strange and unconventional, but 
 from whatever source the words had sprung, 
 they had not been uttered with the intention pre- 
 meditated or spontaneous of making an impres- 
 sion upon him. They carried conviction of 
 their sincerity with them, and Dartmouth was 
 sensible that they produced a somewhat uncanny 
 but strangely responsive effect upon himself. 
 But what did it mean ? That in some occult way 
 she had been granted a glimpse into the depths 
 of his nature was unthinkable. He was not 
 averse to indulging a belief in affinity; and that 
 this girl was his was not a disagreeable idea; 
 but his belief by no means embraced a sec- 
 ond, to the effect that the soul of one's anti- 
 type is as an open book to the other. Could her 
 mind be affected ? But no. She was a very un- 
 usual girl, possibly an eccentric one; but he 
 flattered himself that he knew a lunatic when he 
 saw one. There was left then but the conclu- 
 sion that she possessed a strongly and remark- 
 ably sympathetic nature, as yet unbridled and 
 unblunted by the world, and that he had made a 
 dangerous imprint upon it. He was not unduly 
 vain, but he was willing to believe that she would 
 not vibrate so violently to every man's touch. 
 This point settled to the best of his capabilities,
 
 What Dreams May Come. 7 1 
 
 he allowed a second consciousness, which had 
 been held under for the moment, during the ex- 
 ercisings of his analytical instinct, to claim his 
 consideration. He was sensible that he was at- 
 tracted as he had never been attracted by woman 
 before. He had felt something of this on the 
 night he had met her, and he had felt it more 
 strongly on the occasion of their second inter- 
 view; but now he was aware that it had suddenly 
 taken the form of an overmastering desire for 
 possession. He was by nature an impulsive man, 
 but he was a man of the world as well, and he 
 had his impulses pretty well subordinated to in- 
 terest and common-sense; 'nevertheless he felt 
 very much like doing a rash and impulsive thing 
 at the present moment. He was a man of rapid 
 thought, and these reflections chased each other 
 through his mind much more quickly than I have 
 been able to take them down, and Miss Penrhyn 
 had averted her gaze and was playing nervously 
 with some flowers in a basket on a pedestal be- 
 side her. She was acutely aware that she had 
 made a fool of herself, and imagined that his hes- 
 itation was due to a polite desire to arrange his 
 reply in such wise as not to make his apprecia- 
 tion of the fact too crudely apparent. At the 
 same time she was a little exhausted under 
 the reaction of a short but very severe mental 
 strain. As for Dartmouth, he hesitated a mo- 
 ment longer. He was balancing several pros
 
 72 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 and cons very rapidly. He was aware that if he 
 asked this girl to marry him and she consented, 
 he must, as a man of honor, abide by the con- 
 tract, no matter how much she might disappoint 
 him hereafter. At the same time the knowledge 
 that he was in love with her was growing more 
 distinct every second. Doubtless the wisest 
 course would be to go away for the piesent and 
 postpone any decisive step until he knew her 
 better. But he was not a patient man, and he 
 was not in the habit of putting off until to-mor- 
 row what he could do to-day. (He considered 
 that certain of the precepts instilled during child- 
 hood were of admirable practical value). The 
 best thing in life was its morning: he did not 
 like evening shadows and autumn twilights. 
 There was nothing that could compare with the 
 sweetness and fineness of the flavor of novelty. 
 When it was practicable to take advantage of 
 one's impulses one had a brief draught of true 
 philosopher's happiness. And, at all events, this 
 girl was a lady, high-born, high-bred, intellectual, 
 and unique. She was also plastic, and if she had 
 a somewhat too high-strung nature, love had 
 been known to work wonders before. He had 
 mastered the difficult art of controlling himself; 
 he was not afraid of not being able to control 
 any woman who loved him. He went over to 
 her and took her hands in his strong clasp. 
 
 " I have known you a very short " he be- 
 gan, and then paused abruptly.
 
 11 '//at Dreams May Come. 73 
 
 He had meant to speak calmly and not frighten 
 her by the suddenness of his love-making, but 
 her touch fired him and sent the blood to his 
 head. He flung down her hands, and throwing 
 his arms about her, kissed her full on the mouth. 
 The girl turned very white and tried to free her- 
 self, but his arms were too strong, and in a mo- 
 ment she ceased to resist. She made no attempt 
 to define her feelings -as Dartmouth had done. 
 She had felt the young man's remarkable mag- 
 netism the moment she had met him: she had 
 been aware of a certain prophetic instinct of 
 it some hours before, when he had stood in 
 the window of a crowded cafe above a crowded 
 thoroughfare and speculatively returned her 
 gaze. And the night before, she had gone 
 home with a very sharply outlined consciousness 
 that she would never again meet a man who 
 would interest her so deeply. To-day, this feel- 
 ing had developed into one of strong recipro- 
 cal sympathy, and he had exerted a psychological 
 influence over her as vaguely delightful as it was 
 curious and painful. But all this was no prepar- 
 ation for the sudden tumult of feeling which 
 possessed her under his kiss. She knew that it 
 was love; and, that it had come to her without 
 warning, made the knowledge no less keen and 
 sure. Her first impulse was to resist, but purely 
 out of that pride which forbids a woman to yield 
 too soon; and when his physical strength made
 
 74 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 her powerless, she was glad that it should be so. 
 "Will you marry me?" he asked. 
 " Yes " she said; " I will marry you."
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE DISCORD. 
 I. 
 
 Two WEEKS later Dartmouth had followed 
 Weir Penrhyn to Wales. He had written to her 
 father at once, and Sir Iltyd had informed him 
 in reply that although aware of his rank and 
 private fortune, through Lady Langdon's intima- 
 tion, and although possessing a high regard and 
 esteem for his father, still it was impossible for 
 him to give any definite answer until he had 
 known him personally, and he therefore invited 
 him to come as soon as it pleased him and pay 
 Rhyd-Alwyn a visit. Weir accordingly, and much 
 to Lady Langdon's disgust, had returned to 
 Wales at once; Dartmouth insisted upon an early 
 marriage, and the longer they delayed obtaining 
 Sir Iltyd's consent the longer must the wedding 
 be postponed.
 
 76 What J) reams May Come. 
 
 Dartmouth arrived late in the afternoon at 
 Rhyd-Alwyn a great pile of gray towers of the 
 Norman era and half in ruins. He did not 
 meet Sir Iltyd until a few minutes before dinner 
 was announced, but he saw Weir for a moment 
 before he went up-stairs to dress for dinner. 
 His room was in one of the towers, and as he 
 entered it he had the pleasurable feeling, which 
 Weir so often induced, of stepping back into a 
 dead and gone century. It looked as if unnum- 
 bered generations of Penrhyns had slept there 
 since the hand of the furnisher had touched it. 
 The hard, polished, ascetic-looking floor was 
 black with age; the tapestry on the walls con- 
 veyed but a suggestion of what its pattern and 
 color had been; a huge four-posted bed heavily 
 shrouded with curtains stood in the centre of the 
 room, and there were a number of heavy, carved 
 pieces of furniture whose use no modern Penrhyn 
 would pretend to explain. The vaulted ceiling 
 was panelled, and the windows were narrow and 
 long and high. Sufficient light found its way 
 through them, however, to dress by, and there 
 was a bright log-fire in the open fire-place. 
 
 "Jones," said Dartmouth, after he had admir- 
 ingly examined the details of the room and was 
 getting into his clothes, " just throw those cur- 
 tains up over the roof of that bed. I like the 
 antique, but I don't care to be smothered. Give 
 me my "necktie, and look out for the bed before 
 you forget it."
 
 }} 7 Jiat Dreams May Come. 77 
 
 Jones looked doubtfully up at the canopy. 
 " That is pretty 'igh, sir," he said. " Hif I can 
 find a step-ladder 
 
 "A step-ladder in a Welsh castle! The ante- 
 deluge Penrhyns would turn in their graves, or to 
 be correct, in their family vaults. No true Welsh 
 noble is guilty of departing from the creed of 
 his ancestors to the tune of domestic comforts. 
 It is fortunate a man does not have Jo marry his 
 wife's castle as well as herself. Get up on to that 
 cabinet it is twice as high as yourself and you 
 can manage the curtains quite easily." 
 
 Jones with some difficulty succeeded in mov- 
 ing the tall piece of furniture designated to 
 the bed-side; then with the help of a chair he 
 climbed to the top of it. He caught one of the 
 tender-looking curtains carefully between his 
 hands, and was about to throw it over the 
 canopy, shutting his eyes and his mouth to ex- 
 clude the possible dust, when the cabinet be- 
 neath him suddenly groaned, swayed, and the 
 next moment there was a heavy crash, and he 
 was groaning in the midst of a dozen antique 
 fragments. Harold sprang forward in some 
 alarm and picked him up. " By Jove ! " he ex- 
 claimed, " I am afraid you are hurt; and what a 
 row I have made! I might have known better 
 than to tell you to trust your weight on that old 
 thing." 
 
 Jones shook himself slowly, extended his arms
 
 78 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 and legs, announced himself unhurt, and Dart- 
 mouth gave his attention to the cabinet. " I 
 shall have to initiate myself in my prospective 
 fnther-in-law's good graces by announcing myself 
 a spoiler of his household goods," he exclaimed, 
 ruefully. " And a handsome old thing like that, 
 too; it is a shame ! " He thrust his hands into 
 his pockets and continued looking down at the 
 ruins with a quizzical smile on his face. 
 
 " By every law of romance and of precedent," 
 he thought, "I ought to find in that cabinet the 
 traditional packet of old letters which would 
 throw a flood of light upon some dark and 
 tragic mystery. Else why did I tell Jones to 
 stand upon that particular cabinet instead of that 
 one over there, which looks as if iron hammers 
 could not break it; and why did Jones blindly 
 obey me ? That it should be meaningless chance 
 is too flat to be countenanced. I should find the 
 long lost Mss. of that rhymer who took posses- 
 sion of me that night, and so save myself the 
 discomfort of being turned into a Temple of 
 Fame a second time. Truly there has been an 
 element of the unusual throughout this whole 
 affair with Weir. Once or twice I have felt as if 
 about to sail out of the calm, prosaic waters of 
 this every-day nineteenth-century life, and em- 
 bark upon the phosphorescent sea of our 
 sensational novelists psychological, so-called. 
 It is rather soon for the cabinet to break, how-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 79 
 
 ever. It suggests an anti-climax, which would 
 be inartistic. But such material was never in- 
 tended to be thrown away by a hero of romance." 
 
 He kicked about among the fragments of the 
 ruined cabinet, but was rewarded by no hollow 
 ring. It was a most undutifully matter-of-fact 
 and prosaic piece of furniture in its interior, 
 however much it may have pleased the aesthetic 
 sense outwardly. He gave it up after a time, 
 and finished dressing. " Nothing in that but 
 firewood," he announced to Jones, who had 
 been watching his researches with some surprise. 
 " Pile it up in a corner and leave it there until I 
 have made my peace with Sir Iltyd." 
 
 He gave his necktie a final touch, then went 
 down to the drawing-room, where he found the 
 candles lit and Sir Iltyd standing on the hearth- 
 rug beside his daughter. The old gentleman 
 came forward at once and greeted him with 
 stately, old-fashioned courtesy, his stern, some- 
 what sad features relaxing at once under Dart- 
 mouth's rare charm of manner. He was a fine- 
 looking man, tall and slim like his daughter, but 
 very fair. His head, well developed, but by no 
 means massive, and scantily covered with gray 
 hair, was carried with the pride which was the 
 bone and fibre of his nature. Pride, in fact, 
 albeit a gentle, chastened sort of pride, was writ- 
 ten all over him, from the haughty curve of his 
 eyebrow to the conscious wave of his small, deli-
 
 80 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 cate hand pride, and love for his daughter, 
 for he followed her every movement with the 
 adoring eyes of a man for the one solace of a 
 sad and lonely old age. 
 
 " It is so awfully good of you to let me come 
 up here so soon," exclaimed Dartmouth. " But 
 what do you suppose I have done to prove my 
 gratitude?" 
 
 " Made the castle your own, I hope." 
 
 " I have. I proceeded at once to make my- 
 self at home by smashing up the furniture. One 
 of your handsomest cabinets is now in ruins 
 upon my bedroom floor." 
 
 Sir Iltyd looked at him with a somewhat puz- 
 zled glance. He had lived in seclusion for 
 nearly thirty years, and was unaccustomed to the 
 facetiousness of the modern youth. " Has any- 
 thing happened ? " he demanded anxiously. 
 
 Dartmouth smiled, but gave an account of the 
 disaster in unadorned English, and received for- 
 giveness at once. Had he confessed to having 
 chopped his entire tower to pieces, Sir Iltyd 
 would have listened without a tightening of the 
 lips, and with the air of a man about to invite 
 his guest to make a bonfire of the castle if so it 
 pleased him. As for Weir, her late education 
 made her appreciate the humor of the situation, 
 and she smiled sympathetically at Harold over 
 her father's shoulder. 
 
 They went into dinner a few moments later,
 
 What Dreams May Come. 81 
 
 and Sir Iltyd talked a good deal. Although a 
 man of somewhat narrow limitations and one- 
 sided views, as was but natural, taking into con- 
 sideration the fact that his mental horizon had 
 not been widened out by contact with his fellow- 
 men for twenty-five years, he was, for a recluse, 
 surprisingly well-informed upon the topics of 
 the day. Dartmouth could not forbear making 
 some allusion to the apparent paradox, and his 
 host smiled and told him that as history had 
 been his favorite study all his life, he could 
 hardly be so inconsistent as to ignore the work 
 which his more active contemporaries were mak- 
 ing for the future chronicler. He then drew 
 from Dartmouth a detailed account of that rest- 
 less young gentleman's political experience in 
 Russia, and afterward questioned him somewhat 
 minutely about the American form of govern- 
 ment He seemed to be pleased with the 
 felicity of expression and the well-stored mind 
 of his would-be son-in-law, and lingered at the 
 table longer than was his habit. There were no 
 formalities at Rhyd-Alwyn. Weir remained 
 with them, and when her father finally rose and 
 went over to the hearth-rug, as if loth to leave 
 the society of the young people, she went and 
 stood beside him. He laid his arm across 
 her shoulders, then turned to Dartmouth with a 
 sigh. " You would take her from me," he said, 
 sadly, " do you know that you will leave me to 
 a very lonely life ? "
 
 82 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 " Oh, you will see enough of us," replied Har- 
 old, promptly. " We shall be back and forth all 
 the time. And Crumford Hall, I can assure you, 
 is not a bad place to come to for the shooting." 
 
 Sir Iltyd shook his head: "I could not live 
 out of Wales," he said; "and I have not slept 
 under another roof for a quarter of a century. 
 But it is good of you to say you would not 
 mind coming once in a while to this lonely old 
 place, and it would make the separation easier 
 to bear." 
 
 He left them shortly after, and as he took 
 Harold's hand in good-night, he retained it a 
 moment with an approving smile, then passed a 
 characteristic Welsh criticism: " It is a small 
 hand," he said, "and a very well-shaped hand; 
 and your feet, too. I am willing to acknowledge 
 to you that I am weak enough to have a horror 
 of large hands and feet. Good-night. I have 
 to thank you for a very pleasant evening." 
 
 II. 
 
 " HAROLD," said Weir, the next morning after 
 breakfast, as the door closed behind Sir Iltyd, 
 " I shall entertain you until luncheon by showing 
 you the castle." 
 
 " My dear girl," said Harold, smiling, " let 
 your role of hostess sit lightly upon you. I do 
 not want to be entertained. I am perfectly 
 happy."
 
 What Dreams May Come. 83 
 
 "Of that I have no doubt. Nevertheless I 
 want you to see the castle, particularly the pic- 
 ture-gallery, where all my ancestors be." 
 
 " Then, by my troth, will I go, fair Mistress 
 Penrhyn, for a goodly show your ancestors be, I 
 make no doubt; " and Dartmouth plunged his 
 hands into his pockets and looked down at her 
 with a broad smile. 
 
 Weir lifted her head. " My English is quite 
 as pure as yours," she said. "And you certainly 
 cannot accuse me of using what the London girls 
 call 'slang. ' " 
 
 This time Dartmouth laughed aloud. " No, 
 my dear," he said, " not even Shaksperean slang. 
 But let us investigate the mysteries of the castle 
 by all means. Lead, and I will follow." 
 
 " There are no mysteries," said Weir; " we 
 have not even a ghost. Nor have we a murder, 
 or crime of any sort, to make us blush for our 
 family tree." 
 
 " Happy tree ! Mine has a blush for every 
 twig, and a drop curtain for every branch. 
 Thank God for the Penrhyn graft! Let us hope 
 that it will do as much good as its fairest flower 
 has already done the degenerate scion of all the 
 Dartmouths. But, to the castle! I would get 
 through I mean, I would gaze upon its an- 
 tiquities as soon as possible." 
 
 " This castle is very interesting, Mr. Dart- 
 mouth," replied Weir, elevating her chin; "you 
 have nothing so old in England."
 
 84 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 " True, nor yet in Jerusalem, O haughtiest of 
 Welsh maidens ! I esteem it a favor that I am 
 not put below the salt." 
 
 Weir laughed. " What a tease you are ! But 
 you know that in your heart your pride of 
 family is as great as mine. Only it is the ' fad ' 
 of the day to affect to despise birth and lineage. 
 We of Wales are more honest." 
 
 " Yes, it is your sign and seal, and it sits well 
 upon you. I don't affect to despise birth and 
 lineage, my dear. If I could not trace my an- 
 cestry back to the first tadpole who loafed his 
 life away in the tropical forests of old, I should 
 be miserable." 
 
 He spoke jestingly, but he drew himself up as 
 he spoke, his lip was supercilious, and there was 
 an intolerant light in his eye. At that moment he 
 did not look a promising subject for the Liberal 
 side of the House, avowedly as were his sympa- 
 thies in that quarter. Weir, however, gave him 
 an approving smile, and then commanded him to 
 follow her. 
 
 She took him over the castle, from the dungeons 
 below to the cell-like rooms in the topmost towers. 
 She led him through state bedrooms, in which had 
 slept many a warlike Welsh prince, whose bones 
 could scarcely be in worse order than the magnifi- 
 cence which once had sheltered them. She piloted 
 him down long galleries with arcades on one 
 side,- like a cloister, and a row of rooms on the
 
 What Dreams May Come. 85 
 
 other, wherein the retainers of ancient princes of 
 the house of Penrhyn had been wont to rest their 
 thews after a hard day's fight. She slid back 
 panels and conducted him up by secret ways to 
 gloomy rooms, thick with cobwebs, where treas- 
 ure had been hid, and heads too loyal to a fallen 
 king had alone felt secure on their trunks. She 
 led him to chambers hung with tapestries 
 wrought by fair, forgotten grandmothers, who 
 over their work had dreamed their eventless lives 
 away. She showed him the chapel, impressive 
 in its ancient Norman simplicity and in its ruin, 
 and the great smoke-begrimed banqueting-hall, 
 where wassails had been held, and beauty had 
 thought her lord a beast. 
 
 " Well," she demanded, as they paused at 
 length on the threshold of the picture-gallery, 
 " what do you think of my father's castle ? " 
 
 " Your father's castle is the most consistent 
 thing I have seen fora longtime: it is an artisti- 
 cally correct setting for your father's daughter. 
 The chain of evolution is without a missing 
 link. And what is better, the last link is uneor- 
 roded with the rust of modern conventions. 
 Seriously, your castle is the most romantic I 
 have ever seen. The nineteenth century is for- 
 gotten, and I am a belted Knight of Merrie Eng- 
 land who has stormed your castle and won you 
 by his prowess. You stood in your window, high 
 up in your tower, and threw me a rose, while
 
 86 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 your father stalked about the ramparts and 
 swore that my bones should whiten on the beach. 
 I raised the rose to my lips, dashed across the 
 drawbridge, and hurled my lance at the gates. 
 About my head a shower of barbs and bullets 
 fell, but 1 heeded them not. Behind me thun- 
 dered my retainers, and under their onslaught 
 the mighty gates gave way with a crash, and the 
 castle was ours ! We trampled into the great 
 hall, making it ring with our shouts and the 
 clash of our shields. Your father's men fled 
 before us, but he calmly descended the staircase 
 and confronted us with his best Welsh stare. 
 ' I fear ye not, villains,' he cried. ' Barbarians, 
 English dogs! I defy ye. Do your worst. My 
 daughter and I for death care not. The mighty 
 house of Istyn-ap-Dafyd-ap-Owain-ap-Caradoc- 
 ap-Iltyd-ap-Penrhyn knoweth not fear of living 
 man, nor yet of death's mysterious charnel- 
 house.' 'Wrong me not, gentle sir,' I cried, 
 snatching off my helmet and trailing its plumes 
 upon the floor; ' I come in love, not in destruc- 
 tion. Give me but thy daughter, O Dafyd-ap- 
 Owain- ap - Istyn - ap - Caradoc- ap- Iltyd-ap-Pen- 
 rhyn, and thy castle and thy lands, thy rocks 
 and thy sea, are thine again, even as were they 
 before the beauty of the Lady Weir turned my 
 blood to lava and my heart to a seething volcano. 
 Give me but thy daughter's hand, and wealth 
 shall flow into thy coffers, and the multitude of
 
 What Dreams May Come. 87 
 
 thy retainers shall carry terror to the heart of 
 thy foe. What say ye, my Lord Caradoc-ap- 
 Owain-ap-etcetera ? ' Whereupon the lord of 
 Rhyd-Alwyn unbent his haughty brows, and 
 placing one narrow, white, and shapely hand 
 upon my blood-stained baldric, spoke as follows: 
 ' Well said, young Briton. Spoken like a brave 
 knight and an honorable gentleman. My 
 daughter thou shalt have, my son thou shalt be, 
 thy friends shall be my friends, and thou and all 
 of them shall be baptized Welshmen.' And then 
 he himself re-ascended the staircase and sought 
 you in your tower and led you down and placed 
 your hand in mine. And the drums beat, and 
 the shields clashed, and once more the mighty 
 storm shook the rooks from the roof. But we 
 heard it not, for on your finger I had placed the 
 betrothal ring, then thrown my brawny arms 
 about you and forgot that earth existed. Ex- 
 cuse my eloquence," he cried, as he lifted her up 
 and kissed her, " but your castle and yourself 
 are inspiring." 
 
 " That was all very charming, however," she 
 said, " if you only had not such a reprehensible 
 way of jumping from the sublime to the ridicu- 
 lous, like a meteor from world to world." 
 
 " Prettily said, sweetheart. But, trust me, if I 
 ever reach the sublime I will stay there. Now, 
 to your ancestors! Great heaven ! what an 
 array!"
 
 88 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 They had entered a long, narrow room, against 
 whose dark background stood out darker can- 
 vasses of an army of now celestial Penrhyns; an 
 army whose numbers would have been a morn- 
 ing's task to count. The ancient Penrhyns had 
 been princes, like most of their ilk; and the titles 
 which Weir glibly recited, and the traditions of 
 valor and achievement which she had at her 
 tongue's end, finally wrung from Dartmouth a 
 cry for mercy. 
 
 "My dear girl!" he exclaimed, "keep the 
 rest for another day. Those 'aps' are buzzing 
 in my ears like an army of infuriated gnats, and 
 those mighty deeds are so much alike who is 
 that?" 
 
 He left her side abruptly and strode down 
 the gallery to a picture at the end, and facing 
 the room. It was the full-length, life-size por- 
 trait of a woman with gown and head-dress in 
 the style of the First Empire. One tiny, pointed 
 foot was slightly extended from beneath the 
 white gown, and so perfect had been the skill of 
 the artist she looked as if about to step from 
 the canvas to greet her guests. 
 
 " That is my grandmother, Sioned, wife of 
 Dafyd -ap- Penrhyn, who, I would have you 
 know, was one of the most famous diplomatists 
 of his day," said Weir, who had followed, and 
 stood beside him. " She was the daughter of 
 the proudest earl in Wales but I spare you his
 
 M'hat Dreams May Come. 89 
 
 titles. I am exactly like her, am I not ? It is 
 the most remarkable resemblance which has ever 
 occurred in the family." 
 
 "Yes," said Dartmouth, "you are like her." 
 He plunged his hands into his pockets and 
 stared at the floor, drawing his brows together. 
 Then he turned suddenly to Weir. " I have seen 
 that woman before," he said. "That is the rea- 
 son why I thought it was your face which was 
 familiar. I must have seen your grandmother 
 when I was a very young child. I have forgot- 
 ten the event, but I could never forget such a 
 face." 
 
 "But Harold," said Weir, elevating her brows 
 "It is quite impossible you could ever have seen 
 my grandmother. She died when papa was a 
 little boy." 
 
 "Are you sure?" 
 
 "Quite sure. I have often heard him say he 
 had no memory whatever of his mother. And 
 grandpapa would never talk with him about her. 
 He was a terribly severe old man, they say he 
 died long years before I was born but he must 
 have loved my grandmother very much, for he 
 could not bear to hear her name, and he never 
 came to the castle after her death." 
 
 "It is strange," said Harold, musingly, "but I 
 have surely seen that face before." 
 
 He looked long at the beautiful, life-like pic- 
 ture before him. It was marvellously like Weir
 
 90 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 in form and feature and coloring. But the ex- 
 pression was sad, the eyes were wistful, and the 
 whole face was that, not of a woman who had 
 lived, but of a woman who knew that out of her 
 life had passed the power to live did she bow her 
 knee to the Social Decalogue. As Weir stood, 
 with her bright, eager, girlish face upheld to the 
 woman out of whose face the girlish light had 
 forever gone, the resemblance and the contrast 
 were painfully striking. 
 
 " I love her! " exclaimed Weir, " and whenever 
 I come in here I always kiss her hand." She 
 went forward and pressed her lips lightly to the 
 canvas, while Dartmouth stood with his eyes 
 fastened upon the face whose gaze seemed to 
 meet his own and soften and invite 
 
 He stepped forward suddenly as Weir drew 
 back. " She fascinates me, also," he said, with a 
 half laugh. <; I, too, will kiss her hand." 
 
 WITH the exception of the time spent in the 
 dining-room, the young people saw little of Sir 
 Iltyd. That he liked Dartmouth and enjoyed 
 his society were facts he did not pretend to dis- 
 guise. But the habits of years were too strong, 
 and he always wandered back to his books. He 
 did not trouble himself about proprieties. Weir 
 had grown up and ruled the castle all these years
 
 IV hat Dreams May Come. 91 
 
 without a chaperon, and he had lived out of the 
 world too long to suggest the advisability of one 
 now. His daughter and her lover experienced 
 no yearning for supervision, and the free, un- 
 trammelled life was a very pleasant one, particu- 
 larly to Dartmouth, who always gave to novelty 
 its just meed of appreciation. At this period, 
 in fact, Dartmouth's frame of mind left nothing 
 to be desired. In the first place, it was a de- 
 lightful experience to find himself able to stand 
 the uninterrupted society of one woman from 
 morning till night, day after day, without a 
 suggestion of fatigue. And in the second, he 
 found her a charming study. It is true that he 
 was very much in love, very sincerely and pas- 
 sionately in love; but at the same time, his brain 
 had been trained through too many years to 
 the habit of analysis; he could no more help 
 studying Weir and drawing her on to reveal 
 herself than he could help loving her. She was 
 not a difficult problem to solve, individual as she 
 was, because she was so natural. Her experi- 
 ence with the world had been too brief to give 
 her an opportunity to encase herself in any shell 
 which would not fall from her at the first reaction 
 to primitive conditions; and above all, she was 
 in love. 
 
 In the love of a woman there is always a cer- 
 tain element of childishness, which has a reflex, 
 if but temporary action upon her whole nature.
 
 92 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 The phenomenon is due partly to the fact that 
 she is under the dominant influence of a wholly 
 natural instinct, partly to the fact that the ob- 
 ject of her love is of stronger make than herself, 
 mentally, spiritually, and physically. This sense 
 of dependence and weakness, and, consequently, 
 of extreme youth, remains until she has children. 
 Then, under the influence of peculiarly strong 
 responsibilities, she gives her youth to them, 
 and with it the plasticity of her nature. 
 
 At present Weir was in the stage where she 
 analyzed herself for her lover's benefit, and 
 confided to him every sensation she had ever 
 experienced; and he encouraged her. He had 
 frequently encouraged other women to do the 
 same thing, and in each case, after the first few 
 chapters, he had found it a good deal of a 
 bore. The moment a woman falls in love, that 
 moment she becomes an object of paramount in- 
 terest in her own eyes. All her life she has re- 
 garded herself from the outside; her wants and 
 needs have been purely objective; consequently 
 she has not known herself, and her spiritual na- 
 ture has claimed but little of her attention. But 
 under the influence of love she plunges into her- 
 self, as it were, and her life for the time being is 
 purely subjective. She broadens, expands, de- 
 velops, concentrates; and her successive evolu- 
 tions are a perpetual source of delight and ab- 
 sorbing study. Moreover, her sense of individ-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 93 
 
 uality grows and flourishes, and becomes so pow- 
 erful that she is unalterably certain until it is 
 over that her experience is an isolated and 
 wholly remarkable one. Naturally she must talk 
 to someone; she is teeming with her discoveries, 
 her excursions into the heretofore unexplored 
 depths of human nature; the necessity fora con- 
 fidant is not one to be withstood, and who so 
 natural or understanding a confidant as her 
 lover? If the lover be a clever man and an 
 analyst, he is profoundly interested at first, par- 
 ticularly if she have some trick of mind which 
 gives her, or seems to give her, the smack of in- 
 dividuality. If he be a true lover, and a man with 
 any depth of feeling and of mind, he does not 
 tire, of course; but otherwise he eventually be- 
 comes either oppressed or frightened; he either 
 wishes that women would not take themselves 
 so seriously and forget to be amusing, or her 
 belief in her peculiar and absolute originality 
 communicates itself to him, and he does not feel 
 equal to handling and directing so remarkable 
 a passion. 
 
 There was no question about the strength and 
 verity of Dartmouth's love for Weir, and he had 
 yet to be daunted by anything in life; conse- 
 quently he found his present course of psycho- 
 logical research without flaw. Moreover, the 
 quaintness of her nature pervaded all her ideas. 
 She had an old-fashioned simplicity and direct-
 
 94 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 ness which, combined with a charming quality of 
 mind and an unusual amount of mental develop- 
 ment, gave her that impress of originality which 
 he had recognized and been attracted by. He 
 was gratified also to find that the old-time 
 stateliness, almost primness,which had been to him 
 from the first her chiefest exterior charm did not 
 disappear with association. She might sit on a 
 rock muffled to her ears in furs, and with her feet 
 dangling in the air, and yet manage to look as 
 dignified as a duchess. She might race with 
 him on horseback and clamber down a cliff with 
 the thoughtlessness of a child, but she always 
 looked as if she had been brought up on a chess- 
 board. Dartmouth used to tell her that her 
 peculiarly erect carriage and lofty fashion of 
 carrying her head gave her the effect of surveil- 
 lance over an invisible crown with an unreliable 
 fit, and that she stepped like the maiden in the 
 fairy tale who was obliged to walk upon peas. 
 He made a tin halo one day, and put it suddenly 
 on her head when her back was turned, and she 
 avenged herself by wearing it until he went down 
 on his knees and begged her to take it off. 
 When she sat in her carved high-back chair at 
 the head of her father's table, with the deep 
 collar and cuffs of linen and heavy lace to which 
 she was addicted, and her dark, sensuous, 
 haughty, tender face motionless for the moment, 
 against the dark background of the leather,
 
 What Dreams May Come. 95 
 
 she looked like a Vandyke; and at such times 
 Dartmouth's artistic nature was keenly respon- 
 sive, and he forgot to chaff. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DARTMOUTH had been at Rhyd-Alwyn two 
 weeks, when Sir Iltyd turned to him one night as 
 he was leaving the dining-room and asked him 
 to follow him into the library for a few moments. 
 
 " I feel quite alarmed," said Harold to Weir, 
 as the door closed behind her father. " Do you 
 suppose he is going to tell me that I do not give 
 satisfaction ? " 
 
 "Harold! " exclaimed Weir, reprovingly, " I 
 wish you would not talk as if you were a butler; 
 you look much more dignified than you ever talk. 
 You look like an English nobleman, and you talk 
 like any ordinary young man about town." 
 
 " My dearest girl, would you have me a Sir 
 Charles Grandison ? The English nobleman 
 of your imagination is the gentleman who per- 
 ambulates the pages of Miss Burney's novels. 
 The present species and the young man about 
 town are synonomous animals." 
 
 " There you are again ! You always make me 
 laugh ; I cannot help that; but I wish you would 
 do yourself justice, nevertheless. You may not 
 know it, but if you would only put on a ruff and 
 satin doublet and hose and wig, and all the rest
 
 g6 ]Vliat Dreams May Come. 
 
 of it, you would look exactly like one of the 
 courtiers of the court of Queen Elizabeth. You 
 are a perfect type of the English aristocrat." 
 
 " My dear Lady Jane Grey, if you had been 
 an American girl, you would have said a perfect 
 gentleman, and I should never have spoken to 
 you again. As a matter of fact, I always feel it 
 a sort of sacrilege that I do not address you in 
 blank verse; only my attempts thereat are so 
 very bad. But it is never too late to mend. We 
 will read Pope together, Shakspere, and all the 
 rest of the old boys. We will saturate our minds 
 with their rhythm, and we will thereafter com- 
 municate in stately phrase and rolling periods." 
 
 " It would be a great deal better than slang 
 and ' facetiousness,' as you call it. That is all 
 very well for Lord Bective Hollington; it suits 
 him; but you should aim at a higher standard." 
 
 Dartmouth, who was standing by the chimney- 
 piece near the chair on which she was sitting, 
 put his hand under her chin and raised her face, 
 smiling quizzically as he did so. 
 
 " My dear child," he said, "you are too clever 
 to fall into the common error of women, and 
 idealize your lover. The tendency is a constitu- 
 ent part of the feminine nature, it is true. The 
 average woman will idealize the old tweed coat 
 on her lover's back. But your eyes are too clear 
 for that sort of thing. I am a very ordinary 
 young man, my clear. Becky is twice as clever "
 
 M'hat Dreams May Come. 97 
 
 "He is not! " burst in Weir, indignantly. "A 
 man who can do nothing but chaff and joke and 
 talk witty nonsense! " 
 
 " If you knew him better you would know that 
 under all that persiflage there is much depth of 
 feeling arid passion. I do not claim any unusual 
 amount of intellectuality for him, but he has a 
 wonderful supply of hard common-sense, and 
 remarkably quick perceptions. And I have great 
 respect for his judgment." 
 
 "That may be," said Weir, indifferently; "I 
 care nothing about him." She rose and stood 
 in front of him and leaned her elbows on his 
 shoulders. " You may underrate yourself, if you 
 like," she went on, " but I know that you are 
 capable of accomplishing anything you wish, and 
 of distinguishing yourself. I recall the conver- 
 sations I have had with you in your serious mo- 
 ments, if you do not, and I expect you to be a 
 great man yet." 
 
 Dartmouth flung his cigar impatiently into the 
 fire. " My dear girl, my grandmother preached 
 that same thing to me from the day I was old 
 enough to reason, to the day she died. But I 
 tell you, Weir, I have not got it in me. I have 
 the ambition and the desire yes; but no marked 
 ability of any sort. Some day, when we are 
 ready to settle down, I will write, and publish 
 what I write. Men will grant me a certain stand- 
 ing as a thinker, I believe, and perhaps they will
 
 98 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 also give me credit for a certain nice use of 
 words; I have made a study of literary style all 
 my life. But that is the most I shall ever attain. 
 I am not a man of any genius or originality, and 
 you may as well make up your mind to the inev- 
 itable at once." 
 
 " Harold," said Weir, without taking the 
 slightest notice of his outburst, " do you remem- 
 ber that extraordinary experience of yours that 
 night in Paris ? I believe you have the soul of 
 a poet in you, only as yet your brain hasn't got 
 it under control. Did you ever read the life of 
 Alfieri ? He experienced the same desire to 
 write, over and over again, but could accomplish 
 nothing until after he was thirty. Disraeli illus- 
 trated his struggles for speech in ' Contarini 
 Fleming' most graphically, you remember." 
 
 "Neither Alfieri nor Contarini Fleming ever 
 had any such experience as mine. Their impulse 
 to write was not only a mental concept as well as 
 a spiritual longing, but it was abiding. I never 
 really experienced a desire to write poetry except 
 on that night. I have occasionally wished that 
 I had the ability, but common-sense withheld 
 me from brooding over the impossible. The 
 experience of that night is one which can be 
 explained by no ordinary methods. I can make 
 nothing of it, and for that reason I prefer not to 
 speak of it. I abominate mysteries." 
 
 " Well," she said, " some day I believe it will
 
 What Dreams May Come. 99 
 
 be explained. I believe it was nothing more 
 than an extraordinarily strong impulse to write, 
 and that you exaggerate it into the supernat- 
 ural as you look back upon it. I did not think 
 so when you first told me; you were so dramatic 
 that you carried me off my feet, and I was an 
 actor in the scene. But that is the way I look 
 at it now, and I believe I am correct." 
 
 " It may be," said Dartmouth, moodily, "but I 
 hope it won't affect me that way again, that is 
 all." He caught her suddenly to him and kissed 
 her. " Let us be contented as we are," he said. 
 "Ambition is love's worst enemy. Geniuses do 
 not make their wives happy." 
 
 " They do when their wives understand and 
 are in absolute sympathy with them," she said, 
 returning his caress; "and that I should always 
 be with you. But do not imagine that I am in 
 love with the idea of your being a famous man. 
 I eare nothing for fame in itself. It is only that 
 I believe you to be capable of great things, and 
 that you would be happier if they were devel- 
 oped." 
 
 "Well, well," he said, laughing; "have your 
 own way, as you will in spite of me. If ever the 
 divine fire lays me in ashes, you may triumph in 
 your predictions. But I must go and interview 
 your father; I have kept him waiting too long 
 already." 
 
 They went out into the hall, and Dartmouth left
 
 ioo What Dreams May Come. 
 
 her there and went to the library. Sir Iltyd was 
 sitting before a large table, reading by the light 
 of a student's lamp, which looked like an anach- 
 ronism in the lofty, ancient room. He closed his 
 book as Dartmouth entered, and rising, waved 
 his hand toward a chair on the other side of the 
 table. 
 
 " Will you sit down ?" he said; " I should like 
 to have a little talk with you." 
 
 Dartmouth obeyed, and waited for the old gen- 
 tleman to introduce the subject. Sir Iltyd con- 
 tinued in a moment, taking up a small book and 
 bringing it down lengthwise on the desk at reg- 
 ular intervals while he spoke: 
 
 " Of course, you must know, Harold, that it has 
 not taken me two weeks to discover my personal 
 feelings toward you. I should have liked or dis- 
 liked you on the first evening we met, and, as a 
 matter of fact, my sensations towards you have 
 undergone no change since that night. If it had 
 happened that I disliked you, I should not have 
 allowed the fact to bias my judgment as to 
 whether or not you were a suitable husband for 
 my daughter, but it would not have taken me 
 two weeks to make up my mind. As it is I have 
 merely delayed my consent as an unnecessary 
 formality; but perhaps the time has come to say 
 in so many words that I shall be very glad to 
 give my daughter to you." 
 
 " Thank you," said Dartmouth. The words
 
 What Dreams May Come. 101 
 
 sounded rather bald, but it was an unusual situ- 
 ation, and he did not know exactly what to say. 
 Something more was evidently expected of him, 
 however, and he plunged in recklessly: " I am 
 sure I need not say that I am highly honored by 
 your regard and your confidence, nor protest that 
 you will never regret it. To tell you that I loved 
 Weir with all my heart would be trite, and per- 
 haps it is also unnecessary to add that I am not 
 a man of ' veering passions ' that is, of course 
 when my heart is engaged as well." 
 
 Sir Iltyd smiled. "I should imagine that the 
 last clause was added advisedly. I was a man 
 of the world myself in my young days, and I rec- 
 ognize one in you. Judging from your physiog- 
 nomy and general personality I should say that 
 you have loved a good many women, and have 
 lived in the widest sense of the word." 
 
 "Well yes," admitted Dartmouth, with a 
 laugh. " That sort of thing leaves a man's heart 
 untouched, however." 
 
 " It may, and I am willing to believe that you 
 have given your heart to Weir for good and all." 
 
 "I think I have," said Dartmouth. 
 
 And then the question of settlements was 
 broached, and when it had been satisfactorily 
 arranged, Dartmouth lingered a few moments 
 longer in conversation with his host, and then 
 rose to go. Sir Iltyd rose also and walked with 
 him to the door. 
 
 " Do you mind our being married in a month ? "
 
 102 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 asked Dartmouth, as they crossed the room. 
 " That will give Weir all the time she wants, and 
 we should like to spend the spring in Rome." 
 
 "Very well; let it be in a month. I cannot 
 see that the date is of any importance; only do 
 not forget me in the summer." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Dartmouth; "we expect you 
 to harbor us off and on all the year around." 
 
 And then Sir Iltyd opened the door and bowed 
 with his old-time courtier-like dignity, and Dart- 
 mouth passed out and into the hall. 
 
 HE FOUND Weir kneeling on the hearth-rug. 
 The hall was an immense place with a vaulted 
 ceiling upheld by massive beams; the walls were 
 wainscotted almost to the top with oak which 
 had been polished for many a century; and the 
 floor, polished also, was covered with rugs which 
 had been very handsome in their day. There 
 were several superb suits of armor and a quantity 
 of massive, carved oaken furniture, extremely un- 
 comfortable but very picturesque. In the open 
 fire-place, which would have held many more 
 than Harold and Weir within its depths, great 
 logs were burning. The lamps had been brought 
 in but had not been turned up, and save for the 
 firelight the great cathedral apartment was a 
 thicket of shadows, out of which the steel war-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 103 
 
 riors gleamed, menacing guardians of the girl. 
 
 Weir made a pretty picture kneeling on the 
 hearth-rug, with the fire-light playing on her 
 dark face and pliant figure, in its closely-fitting 
 black gown, throwing golden flickers on her hair, 
 and coquetting with the lanterns in her eyes. 
 She rose as Dartmouth approached, and he gave 
 her one of his brilliant, satisfied smiles. 
 
 " We are to be married a month from to-day," 
 he said. " A month from to-day and we shall be 
 knocking about Europe and pining for English 
 civilization." He drew her down on the cush- 
 ioned seat that ran along the wall by the chimney- 
 piece. " We cannot go out to-night; there is a 
 storm coming up. Ah, did I not tell you ? " as a 
 gust of wind shrieked and rattled the sash. 
 
 She gave a little shiver and drew closer to him. 
 " I hate a storm," she said. " It always brings 
 back " she stopped abruptly. 
 
 " Brings back what ? " 
 
 " Nothing," hastily. " So father has given his 
 consent ? But I knew he would. I knew he 
 liked you the moment you met; and when he 
 alluded that night to your small hands and feet 
 I knew that the cause was won. Had they been 
 at fault, nothing could have persuaded him that 
 you did not have a broad river of red blood in 
 you somewhere, and he never would have ap- 
 proved of you had you been the monarch of a 
 kingdom." 
 
 Dartmouth smiled. " The men at college used
 
 io4 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 to laugh at my hands, until I nearly choked one 
 of them to death one day, after which they never 
 laughed at them again. There is no doubt now 
 about my having been destined at birth for a 
 Welsh maiden, and equipped accordingly. But 
 you know your father pretty thoroughly." 
 
 " I have lived alone with him so long that I 
 can almost read his mind, and I certainly know 
 his peculiarities." 
 
 " It must have been a terribly lonely life for 
 you. How old were you when your mother 
 died ? " 
 
 She moved with the nervous motion habitual 
 to her whenever her mother's name was men- 
 tioned. " I was about nine," she said. 
 
 " Nine ? . And yet you remember nothing of 
 her ? Weir, it is impossible that you cannot re- 
 member her." 
 
 " I do not remember her," she said. 
 
 " I saw her picture in the library to-night. 
 She must have been very beautiful, but like you 
 only in being dark. Otherwise, there is not a 
 trace of resemblance. But surely you must re- 
 member her, Weir; you are joking. I can re- 
 member when I was four years of age perfectly, 
 and many things that happened." 
 
 " I remember nothing that happened before I 
 was nine years old," she said. 
 
 He bent down suddenly and looked into her 
 face. " Weir, what do you mean ? There is al-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 105 
 
 ways an uncomfortable suggestion of mystery 
 whenever one speaks of your mother or your 
 childhood. What is the reason you cannot re- 
 member ? Did you have brain fever, and when 
 you recovered, find your mind a blank ? Such 
 things have happened." 
 
 " No," she said, desperately, as if she had 
 nerved herself for an effort. " That was not it. 
 I have often wanted to tell you, but I cannot 
 bear to speak of it. The old horror always 
 comes back when I think of it. But I feel that 
 I ought to tell you before we are married, and I 
 will do so now since we are speaking of it. I 
 did not have brain fever, but when I was nine 
 years old I died." 
 
 "You what ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is true. They called it catalepsy, a 
 trance; but it was not; I was really dead. I was 
 thrown from a horse a few months after my 
 mother's death, and killed instantly. They laid 
 me in the family vault, but my father had ice 
 put about me and would not have me covered, 
 and went every hour to see me, as he told me 
 afterward. I remember nothing; and they say that 
 when people are in a trance they are conscious 
 of everything that passes around them. I knew 
 nothing until one night I suddenly opened my 
 eyes and looked about me. It was just such a 
 night as this, only in mid-winter; the wind was 
 howling and shrieking, and the terrible gusts
 
 106 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 shook the vault in which I lay. The ocean 
 roared like thunder, and I could hear it hurl itself 
 in its fury against the rocks at the foot of the 
 castle. A lamp was burning at my feet, and by 
 its flickering light I could see in their niches on 
 every side of me the long lines of dead who had 
 lain there for centuries. And I was alone with 
 them, locked in with them; no living creature 
 within call ! And I was so deathly cold. There 
 was a great block of ice on my chest, and slabs 
 of it were packed about my limbs so tightly that 
 I could not move. I could only feel that horrible, 
 glassy cold which I knew had frozen the marrow 
 in my bones and turned my blood to jelly; and 
 the pain of it was something which I have no 
 words to describe. I tried to call out, but the 
 ice was on my chest, and I could hardly breathe. 
 Then for a moment I lay trying to collect my 
 thoughts. I did not know where I was. I did not 
 know that I was in the vault of my ancestors. I 
 only felt that I had been wandering and wandering 
 in some dim, far-off land looking for someone I 
 could never find, and that suddenly I had come into 
 another world and found rest. But although I did 
 not know that I was in the vault at Rhyd-Alwyn, 
 and that my name was Weir Penrhyn, I knew 
 that I was laid out as a corpse, and that the dead 
 were about me. Child as I was, it seemed to me 
 that I must go frantic with the horror of the 
 thing, stretched out in that ghastly place, a
 
 ll'/iat Dreams May Come. 107 
 
 storm roaring about me, bound hand and foot, 
 unable to cry for help. I think that if I had 
 been left there all night I should have died again 
 or lost my mind, but in a moment I heard a 
 noise at the grating and men's voices. 
 
 " ' I must go in and see her once more,' I heard 
 a strange voice say. ' It seems cruelty to leave 
 her alone in this storm.' And then a man came 
 in and bent over me. In a moment he called 
 sharply, ' Madoc ! bring me the light.' And then 
 another man came, and I looked up into two 
 strange, eager, almost terrified faces. I heard 
 incoherent and excited voices, then the ice was 
 dashed off my chest and I was caught up in a 
 pair of strong arms and borne swiftly to the 
 house. They took me to a great blazing fire and 
 wrapped me in blankets and poured hot drinks 
 down my throat, and soon that terrible chill be- 
 gan to leave me and the congealed blood in my 
 veins to thaw. And in a few days I was as well 
 as ever again. But I remembered no one. I had 
 to become acquainted with them all as with the 
 veriest strangers. I had the natural intelligence 
 of my years, but nothing more. Between the hour 
 of my soul's flight from its body and that of its re- 
 turn it had been robbed of every memory. I remem- 
 bered neither my mother nor any incident of my 
 childhood. I could not find my way over the 
 castle, and the rocks on which I had lived since 
 infancy were strangers to me. Everything was
 
 io8 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 a blank up to the hour when I opened my eyes 
 and found myself between the narrow walls of 
 a coffin." 
 
 " Upon my word ! " exclaimed Dartmouth. 
 " Why, you are a regular heroine of a sensational 
 novel." 
 
 Weir sprang to her feet and struck her hands 
 fiercely together, her eyes blazing. "You ought 
 to be ashamed of yourself," she cried, passionately. 
 " Can you never be serious ? Must you joke 
 about everything ? I believe you will find some- 
 thing to laugh at in the marriage service. That 
 thing I have told you is the most serious and 
 horrible experience of my life, and yet you treat 
 it as if I were acting a part in a melodrama in a 
 third-rate theatre ! Sometimes I think I hate 
 you." 
 
 Dartmouth caught her in his arms and forced 
 her to sit down again beside him. " My dear 
 girl," he said, " why is it that a woman can never 
 understand that when a man feels most he chaffs, 
 especially if he has cultivated the beastly habit. 
 Your story stirred me powerfully; the more so 
 because such things do not happen to every-day 
 girls " 
 
 " Harold ! " 
 
 "Do not wrong me; I am in dead earnest. As 
 a plain matter of fact, I never heard of anything 
 so horrible. Thank heaven it happened when 
 you were so young! No woman's will and spirit
 
 What Dreams May Come. 109 
 
 could rise superior to such a memory if it were 
 a recent one. But am I forgiven ? " 
 
 "As you are perfectly incorrigible, I suppose 
 there is no use being angry with you," she 
 said, still with a little pout on her lips. " But I 
 will forgive you on one condition only." 
 
 " Name it." 
 
 " You are never to mention the subject to me 
 again after to-night." 
 
 "I never will; but tell me, has the memory of 
 your childhood never come back for a moment ? " 
 
 " Never. All I remember is that sense of 
 everlasting wandering and looking for something. 
 For a long while I was haunted with the idea 
 that there was something I still must find. I 
 never could discover what it was, but it has left 
 me now. If you had not been so unkind, I 
 should have said that it is because I am too 
 happy for mysterious and somewhat supernat- 
 ural longings." 
 
 " But as it is, you won't. It was an odd feeling 
 to have, though. Perhaps it was a quest for the 
 memories of your childhood for a lost existence, 
 as it were. If ever it comes again, tell me, and 
 we will try and work it out together." 
 
 " Harold! " she exclaimed, smiling outright this 
 time, "you will be trying to analyze the cob- 
 webs of heaven before long." 
 
 "No," he said, " they are too dense." 
 VI. 
 
 IT was eleven o'clock when they parted for
 
 1 1 o What Dreams May Come. 
 
 the night. Dartmouth went up to his room 
 and sat down at his desk to write a letter to his 
 father. In a moment he threw down the pen; 
 he was not in a humor for writing. He picked up 
 a book (he never went to bed until he felt sleepy), 
 and crossed the room and sat down before the 
 fire. But he had not read two pages when he 
 dropped it with an exclamation of impatience: 
 the story Weir had told him was written between 
 every line. She had told it so vividly and realis- 
 tically that she had carried him with her and 
 almost curdled his blood. He had answered her 
 with a joke, because, in spite of the fact that he 
 had been strongly affected, he was angry as well. 
 He hated melodrama, and the idea of Weir hav- 
 ing had an experience which read like a sensa- 
 tional column in a newspaper was extremely 
 distasteful to him. He sympathized with her 
 with all his heart, but he had a strong distaste 
 for anything which savored of the supernatural. 
 Nevertheless, he was obliged to acknowledge that 
 this horrible, if commonplace experience of Weir's 
 had taken possession of his mind, and refused to 
 be evicted. The scene kept presenting itself in 
 all its details again and again, and finally he 
 jumped to his feet in disgust and determined to 
 go to the long gallery which overhung the sea, 
 and watch the storm. Rhyd-Alwyn was built on 
 a steep cliff directly on the coast, and exposed to 
 all the fury of the elements. In times of storm,
 
 What Dreams May Come. in 
 
 and when the waves were high, the spray flew up 
 against the lower windows. 
 
 He left his room and went down the wide hall, 
 then turned into a corridor, which terminated in 
 a gallery that had been built as a sort of observ- 
 atory. The gallery was long and very narrow, 
 and the floor was bare. But there were seats 
 under the windows, and on a table were a num- 
 ber of books; it was a place Dartmouth and 
 Weir were very fond of when it was not too 
 cold. 
 
 It was a clear, moonlit night, in spite of the 
 storm. There was no rain; it was simply a battle 
 of wind and waves. Dartmouth stood at one of 
 the windows and looked out over the angry 
 waters. The billows were piling one above the 
 other, black, foam-crested, raging like wild ani- 
 mals beneath the lash of the shrieking wind. 
 Moon and stars gazed down calmly, almost won- 
 deringly, holding their unperturbed watch over 
 the war below. Sublime, forceful, the sight 
 suited the somewhat excited condition of Dart- 
 mouth's mind. Moreover, he was beginning to 
 feel that one of his moods was insidiously creep- 
 ing upon him : not an attack like the last, but a 
 general feeling of melancholy. If he could only 
 put that wonderful scene before him into verse, 
 what a solace and distraction the doing of it 
 would be ! He could forget he pulled himself 
 together with something like terror. In another
 
 1 1 2 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 moment there would be a repetition of that night 
 in Paris. The best thing he could do was to gt> 
 back to his room and take an anodyne. 
 
 He turned to leave the gallery, but as he did 
 so he paused suddenly. Far down, at the other 
 end, something was slowly coming toward him. 
 The gallery was very long and ill-lighted by the 
 narrow, infrequent windows, and he could not 
 distinguish whom it was. He stood, however, 
 involuntarily waiting for it to approach him. 
 But how slowly it came, as one groping or one 
 walking in a dream! Then, as it gradually neared 
 him, he saw that it was a woman, dimly out- 
 lined, but still unmistakably a woman. He spoke, 
 but there was no answer, nothing but the echo of 
 his voice through the gallery. Someone trying 
 to play a practical joke upon him ! Perhaps it 
 was Weir: it would be just like her. He walked 
 forward quickly, but before he had taken a dozen 
 steps the advancing figure came opposite one of 
 the windows, and the moonlight fell about it. 
 Dartmouth started back and caught his breath 
 as if someone had struck him For a moment 
 his pulses stood still, and sense seemed sus- 
 pended. Then he walked quickly forward and 
 stood in front of her. 
 
 " Sioned ! " he said, in a low voice which thrilled 
 through the room. "Sioned! " He put out his 
 hand and took hers. It was ice-cold, and its 
 contact chilled him to the bone; but his clasp
 
 What Dreams May Come. 113 
 
 grew closer and his eyes gazed into hers with 
 passionate longing. 
 
 " I am dead," she said. " I am dead, and I am 
 so cold." She drew closer and peered up into 
 his face. " I have found you at last," she went 
 on, "but I wandered so far. There was no nook 
 or corner of Eternity in which I did not search. 
 But although we went together, we were hurled 
 to the opposite poles of space before our spirit- 
 ual eyes had met, and an unseen hand directed 
 us ever apart. I was alone, alone, in a great, 
 gray, boundless land, with but the memory of 
 those brief moments of happiness to set at bay 
 the shrieking host of regrets and remorse and 
 repentance which crowded about me. I floated 
 on and on and on for millions and millions of 
 miles; but of you, my one thought on earth, my 
 one thought in Eternity, I could find no trace, 
 not even the whisper of your voice in passing. 
 I tossed myself upon a hurrying wind and let it 
 carry me whither it would. It gathered strength 
 and haste as it flew, and whirled me out into 
 the night, nowhere, everywhere. And then it 
 slackened and moaned and then, with one 
 great sob, it died, and once more I was alone in 
 space and an awful silence. And then a voice 
 came from out the void and said to me, ' Go 
 down; he is there; ' and I knew that he meant 
 to Earth, and for a moment I rebelled. To go 
 back to that terrible But on Earth there had
 
 ii4 IV hat Dreams May Come. 
 
 been nothing so desolate as this and if you 
 were there! So I came and I have found you 
 at last." 
 
 She put her arms about him and drew him 
 down onto the low window-seat. He shivered 
 at her touch, but felt no impulse to resist her 
 will, and she pressed his head down upon her 
 cold breast. Then, suddenly, all things changed; 
 the gallery, the moonlight, the white-robed, ice- 
 cold woman faded from sense. The storm was 
 no longer in his ears nor were the waves at his 
 feet. He was standing in a dusky Eastern room, 
 familiar and dear to him. Tapestries of rich 
 stuffs were about him. and the skins of wild ani- 
 mals beneath his feet. Beyond, the twilight 
 stole through a window, but did not reach where 
 he stood. And in his close embrace was the 
 woman he loved, with the stamp on her face of 
 suffering, of desperate resolution, and of con- 
 scious, welcomed weakness. And in his face was 
 the regret for wasted years and possibilities, and 
 a present, passionate gladness; that he could see 
 in the mirror of the eyes over which the lids were 
 slowly falling. . . . And the woman wore a 
 clinging, shining yellow gown, and a blaze of 
 jewels in her hair. What was said he hardly 
 knew. It was enough to feel that a suddenly- 
 born, passionate joy was making his pulses leap 
 and his head reel; to know that heaven had come 
 to him in this soft, quiet Southern night.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 115 
 
 VII. 
 
 DARTMOUTH opened his eyes and looked 
 about him. The storm had died, the waves were 
 at rest, and he was alone. He let his head fall 
 back against the frame of the window, and his 
 eyes closed once more. What a dream ! so 
 vivid! so realistic! Was it not his actual life? 
 Could he take up the threads of another ? He 
 felt ten years older; and, retreating down the 
 dim, remote corridors of his brain, were trooping 
 memories of a long, regretted, troubled, eventful 
 past. In a moment they had vanished like 
 ghosts and left no trace; he could recall none of 
 them. He opened his eyes again and looked 
 down the gallery, and gradually his perceptions 
 grasped its familiar lines, and he was himself 
 once more. He rose to his feet and put his hand 
 to his head. That woman whom he had taken 
 for the ghost of one dead and gone had been 
 Weir, of course. She had arisen in her sleep 
 and attired herself like the grandmother whose 
 living portrait she was; she had piled up her 
 hair and caught her white gown up under her 
 bosom; and, in the shadows and mystery of night, 
 small wonder that she had looked as if the can- 
 vas in the gallery below had yielded her up! But 
 what had her words meant ? her words, and that 
 dream ? but no they were not what he wanted. 
 There had been something else what was it?
 
 1 1 6 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 He felt as if a mist had newly arisen to cloud 
 his faculties. There had been something else 
 which had made him not quite himself as he had 
 stood there with his arms about the woman who 
 had been Weir, and yet not Weir. Above the 
 pain and joy and passion which had shaken him, 
 there had been an unmistakable perception of 
 an attribute a quality of another sort of a 
 power, of which he, Harold Dartmouth, had 
 never been conscious of of ah, yes ! of the 
 power to pour out at the feet of that woman, in 
 richest verse, the love she had awakened, and 
 make them both immortal. What were the 
 words ? They had been written legibly in his 
 brain; he remembered now. He had seen and 
 read them yes, at last, at last! " Her face ! her 
 form!" No! no! not that again. Oh, why would 
 they not come ? They had been there, the words; 
 the sense must be there, the inspiration, the bat- 
 tling for voice and victory. They were ready to 
 pour through his speech in a flood of song, but 
 that iron hand forced them back down, down, 
 setting blood and brain on fire. Ah ! what was 
 that ? Far off, at the end of some long gallery, 
 there was a sweet, dying strain of music, and 
 there were words gathering in volume; they 
 were rolling on; they were coming; they were 
 thundering through his brain in a mighty chorus! 
 There ! he had grasped them No ! that iron 
 hand had grasped them and was hurling them
 
 What Dreams May Come. 117 
 
 back. In another moment it would have forced 
 them down into their cell and turned the key ! 
 He must catch and hold one of them ! Yes, he 
 had it! Oh ! victory ! " Her eyes, her hair." 
 
 Dartmouth thrust out his hands as if fighting 
 with a physical enemy, and he looked as if he had 
 been through the agonies of death. The con- 
 flict in his brain had suddenly ceased, but his 
 physical strength was exhausted. He turned and 
 walked uncertainly to his room; then he collected 
 his scattered wits sufficiently to drop some lauda- 
 num and take it, that he might ward off, if pos- 
 sible, the attack of physical and spiritual prostra- 
 tion which had been the result of a former ex^ 
 perience of a similar kind. Then, "dressed as he 
 was, he flung himself on the bed and slept. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 WHEN Dartmouth awoke the next day, the sun 
 was streaming across the bed and Jones's anx- 
 ious face was bending over him. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. 'Arold," exclaimed Jones, "you've 
 got it again." 
 
 Dartmouth laughed aloud. "One would think 
 I had delirium tremens," he said. 
 
 He put his hand over his eyes, and struggled 
 with the desire to have the room darkened. The 
 melancholy had fastened itself upon him, and he 
 knew that for three or four days he was to be
 
 1 1 8 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 the victim of one of his unhappiest moods. The 
 laudanum had lulled his brain and prevented 
 violent reaction after its prolonged tension; but 
 his spirits were at zero, and his instinct was to 
 shut out the light and succumb to his enemy 
 without resistance. If he had been anywhere 
 but at Rhyd-Alwyn he would not have thought 
 twice about it; but if he shut himself up in his 
 room, not only would Weir be frightened and un- 
 happy, but it was probable that Sir Iltyd would 
 question the desirability of a son-in-law who was 
 given to prolonged and uncontrollable attacks of 
 the blues. He dressed and went down-stairs, 
 but Weir was nowhere to be found, and after a 
 search through the various rooms and corners of 
 the castle which she was in the habit of frequent- 
 ing, he met her maid and was informed that Miss 
 Penrhyn was not well and would not come down- 
 stairs before dinner. The news was very unwel- 
 come to Dartmouth. Weir at least would have 
 been a distraction. Now he must get through a 
 dismal day, and fight his enemy by himself. To 
 make matters worse, it was raining, and he could 
 not go out and ride or hunt. He went into Sir 
 Iltyd's library and talked to him for the rest of 
 the morning. Sir Iltyd was not exciting, at his 
 best, and to-day he had a bad cold; so after 
 lunch Dartmouth went up to his tower and 
 resigned himself to his own company. He sat 
 down before the fire, and taking his head be-
 
 What Dreams May Come. 119 
 
 tween his hands allowed the blue devils to tri- 
 umph. He felt dull as well as depressed; but for 
 a time he made an attempt to solve the problem 
 of the phenomenon to which he had been twice 
 subjected. That it was a phenomenon he did not 
 see any reason to doubt. If he had spent his life 
 in a vain attempt to write poetry and an unceas- 
 ing wish for the necessary inspiration, there 
 would be nothing remarkable in his mind yield- 
 ing suddenly to the impetus of accumulated 
 pressure, wrenching itself free of the will's con- 
 trol, and dashing off on a wild excursion of its 
 own. But he had never voluntarily taken a pen 
 in his hand to make verse, nor had he even felt 
 the desire to possess the gift, except as a part of 
 general ambition. He may have acknowledged 
 the regret that he could not immortalize himself 
 by writing a great poem, but the regret was the 
 offspring of personal ambition, not of yearning 
 poetical instinct. But the most extraordinary 
 phase of the matter was that such a tempest 
 could take place in a brain as well regulated as 
 his own. He was eminently a practical man, and 
 a good deal of a thinker. He had never been 
 given to flights of imagination, and even in his 
 attacks of melancholy, although his will might be 
 somewhat enfeebled, his brain could always work 
 clearly and cleverly. The lethargy which had 
 occasionally got the best of him had invariably 
 been due to violent nervous shock or strain, and
 
 120 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 was as natural as excessive bodily languor after 
 violent physical effort. Why, then, should his 
 brain twice have acted as if he had sown it with 
 eccentric weeds all his life, instead of planting it 
 with the choicest seeds he could obtain, and 
 watering and cultivating them with a patience 
 and an interest which had been untiring ? 
 
 But the explanation of his attempt to put his 
 unborn poem into words gave him less thought 
 to-day than it had after its first occurrence; 
 there were other phases of last night's experi- 
 ence weirder and more unexplainable still. 
 Paramount, of course, was the vision or dream 
 which would seem to have been induced by some 
 magnetic property possessed and exerted by 
 Weir. Such things do not occur without cause, 
 and he was not the sort of man to yield himself, 
 physically and mentally, his will and his percep- 
 tions, to the unconscious caprice of a somnam- 
 bulist. And the scene had cut itself so deeply 
 into the tablets of his memory that he found him- 
 self forgetting more than once that it was not an 
 actual episode of his past. He wished he could 
 see Weir, and hear her account of her mental 
 experiences of those hours. If her dream should 
 have been a companion to his, then the explana- 
 tion would suggest itself that the scene might 
 have been a vagary of her brain; that in some 
 way which he did not pretend to explain, she had 
 hypnotized him, and that his brain had received
 
 What JD reams May Come. 121 
 
 a photographic imprint <.f what had been in hers. 
 It would then be merely a sort of telepathy. But 
 why should she have dreamed a dream in which 
 they both were so unhappily metamorphosed ? 
 and why should it have produced so powerful an 
 impression upon his waking sense ? And why, 
 strangest of all, had he, without thought or self- 
 surprise, gone to her, and with his soul stirred to 
 its depths, called her "Sioned "? True, she had 
 almost disguised herself, and had been the living 
 counterfeit of Sioned Penrhyn; but that was no 
 reason why he should have called a woman who 
 had belonged to his grandmother's time by her 
 first name. Could Weir, thoroughly imbued with 
 the character she was unconsciously representing, 
 have exercised her hypnotic power from the mo- 
 ment she entered the gallery, and left him with- 
 out power to think or feel except through her 
 own altered perceptions ? He thrust out his foot 
 against the fender, almost overturning it, and, 
 throwing back his head, clasped his hands behind 
 it and scowled at the black ceiling above him. 
 He was a man who liked things explained, and he 
 felt both sullen and angry that he should have 
 had an experience which baffled his powers of 
 analysis and reason. His partial solution gave 
 him no satisfaction, and he had the uncomforta- 
 ble sense of actual mystery, and a premonition of 
 something more to come. This, however ; he was 
 willing to attribute to the depressed condition of
 
 122 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 his spirits, which threw its gloom over every 
 object, abstract and concrete, and which induced 
 the tendency to exaggerate any strange or un- 
 pleasant experience of which he had been the 
 victim. It was useless to try to think of anything 
 else; his brain felt as if it had resolved itself into 
 a kaleidoscope, through which those three scenes 
 shifted eternally. Finally, he fell asleep, and did 
 not awaken until it was time to dress for dinner. 
 Before he left his room, Weir's maid knocked 
 at his door and handed him a note, in which 
 the lady of Rhyd-Alwyn apologized for leaving 
 him to himself for an entire day, and announced 
 that she would not appear at dinner, but would 
 meet him in the drawing-room immediately there- 
 after. Dartmouth read the note through with a 
 puzzled expression: it was formal and stilted, 
 even for Weir. She was gone when he came to 
 his senses in the gallery the night before. Had 
 she awakened and become conscious of the situ- 
 ation ? It was not a pleasant reminiscense for a 
 girl to have, and he felt honestly sorry for her. 
 Then he groaned in spirit at the prospect of an 
 hour's tete-a-tete with Sir Iltyd. He liked Sir 
 Iltyd very much, and tffbught him possessed of 
 several qualifications valuable in a father-in-law, 
 among them his devotion to his library; but 
 in his present frame of mind he felt that history 
 and politics were topics he would like to relegate 
 out of existence.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 123 
 
 He put the best face on the situation he could 
 muster, however, and managed to conceal from 
 Sir Iltyd the fact that his spirits were in other 
 than their normal condition. The old baronet's 
 eyes were not very sharp, particularly when he 
 had a cold, and he was not disposed to notice 
 Harold's pallor and occasional fits of abstraction, 
 so long as one of his favorite topics was under 
 discussion. When Dartmouth found that he had 
 got safely through the dinner, he felt that he had 
 accomplished a feat which would have rejoiced 
 the heart of his grandmother, and he thought that 
 his reward could not come a moment too soon. 
 Accordingly, for the first time since he had been 
 at Rhyd-Alwyn, he declined to sit with Sir Iltyd 
 over the wine, and went at once in search of 
 Weir. 
 
 As he opened the door of the drawing-room he 
 found the room in semi-darkness, lighted only by 
 the last rays of the setting sun, which strayed 
 through the window. He went in, but did not 
 see Weir. She was not in her accustomed seat 
 by the fire, and he was about to call her name, 
 when he came to a sudden halt, and for the mo- 
 ment every faculty but one seemed suspended. 
 A woman was standing by the open window look- 
 ing out over the water. She had not heard him, 
 and had not turned her head. Dartmouth felt a 
 certain languor, as of one who is dreaming, and is 
 half-conscious that he is dreaming, and therefore
 
 124 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 yields unresistingly to the pranks of his sleeping 
 brain. Was it Weir, or was it the woman who 
 had been a part of his vision last night ? She wore 
 a long, shining yellow dress, and her arms and 
 neck were bare. Surely it was the other woman! 
 She turned her head a little, and he saw her 
 face in profile; there was the same stamp of 
 suffering, the same pallor. Weir had never 
 looked like that; before he had known her she 
 had had, sometimes, a little expression of sadness 
 and abstraction which had made her look very 
 picturesque, but which had borne no relationship 
 to suffering or experience. And the scene! the 
 room filled with dying light, the glimpse of water 
 beyond, the very attitude of the woman at the 
 casement all were strangely and deeply familiar 
 to him, although not the details of the vision of 
 last night. The only things that were wanting 
 were the Eastern hangings to cover the dark 
 wainscotted old walls, and the skins on the black, 
 time-stained floor. 
 
 With a sudden effort of will he threw off the 
 sense of mystery which had again taken posses- 
 sion of him, and walked forward quickly. As 
 Weir heard him, she turned her head and met 
 his eyes, and although a closer look at her face 
 startled him afresh, his brain was his own again, 
 and he was determined that it should remain so. 
 He might yield to supernatural impressions when 
 unprepared, but not when both brain and will
 
 What Dreams May Come. 125 
 
 were defiantly on the alert. That she was not 
 only unaccountably altered, but that she shrank 
 from him, was evident; and he was determined to 
 hear her version of last night's adventure without 
 delay. He believed that she would uncon- 
 sciously say something which would throw a flood 
 of light on the whole matter. 
 
 " Where did you get that dress ? " he said, ab- 
 ruptly. 
 
 She started sharply, and the color flew to the 
 roots of her hair, then, receding, left her paler 
 than before. " Why do you ask me that ? " she 
 demanded, with unconcealed, almost terrified 
 suspicion in her tones. 
 
 "Because," he said, looking straight into her 
 eyes, "I had a peculiar dream last night, in which 
 you wore a dress exactly like this. It is rather a 
 remarkable coincidence that you should put it on 
 to-night." 
 
 "Harold!" she cried, springing forward and 
 catching his arm convulsively in both her hands. 
 " what has happened ? What is it ? And how 
 can you talk so calmly when to me it seems " 
 
 He put his arm around her. " Seems what ? " 
 he said, soothingly. " Did you have a dream, 
 too ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, her face turning a shade 
 paler, " I had a dream." 
 
 " And in it you wore this dress ? " 
 
 " Yes."
 
 126 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 " Tell me your dream. " 
 
 " No ! " she exclaimed, " I cannot." 
 
 Dartmouth put his hand under her chin and 
 pushed her head back against his shoulder, up- 
 turning her face. " You must tell me," he 
 said, quietly; " every word of it ! I am not ask- 
 ing you out of curiosity, but because the dream 
 I had was too remarkable to be without mean- 
 ing. I cannot reach that meaning unassisted; 
 but with your help I believe I can. So tell me 
 at once." 
 
 " Oh, Harold ! " she cried, throwing her arms 
 suddenly about him and clinging to him, " I have 
 no one else to speak to but you: I cannot tell 
 my father; he would not understand. No girl 
 ever felt so horribly alone as I have felt to-day. 
 If it had not been for you I believe I should have 
 killed myself; but you are everything to me, only 
 how can I tell you ? " 
 
 He tightened his arms about her and kissed 
 her. 
 
 " Don't kiss me," she exclaimed sharply, try- 
 ing to free herself. 
 
 " Why not ? " he demanded, in surprise. " Why 
 should I not kiss you ? " 
 
 She let her head drop again to his shoulder. 
 " True," she said; " why should you not ? It is 
 only that I forget that I am not the woman I 
 dreamed I was; and for her it was wrong to 
 kiss you."
 
 What Dreams May Come. 127 
 
 " Weir, tell me your dream at once. It is for 
 your good as well as mine that I insist. You 
 will be miserable and terrified until you take 
 someone into your confidence. I believe I can 
 explain your dream, as well as give you the com- 
 fort of talking it over with you." 
 
 She slipped suddenly out of his arms and 
 walked quickly to the end of the room and 
 back, pausing within a few feet of him. The 
 room was growing dark, and he could distinguish 
 little of her beyond the tall outline of her form 
 and the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes, but he 
 respected her wish and remained where he was. 
 
 " Very well," she said, rapidly. " I will tell 
 you. I went to sleep without much terror, for I 
 had told my maid to sleep in my dressing-room. 
 But I suppose the storm and the story I had told 
 you had unsettled my nerves, for I soon began 
 to dream a horrid dream. I thought I was dead 
 once more. I could feel the horrible chill and 
 pain, the close-packed ice about me. I was 
 dead, but yet there was a spirit within me. I 
 could feel it whispering to itself, although it had 
 not as yet spread its fire through me and awak- 
 ened me into life. It whispered that it was tired, 
 and disheartened, and disappointed, and wanted 
 rest; that it had been on a long, fruitless journey, 
 and was so weary that it would not take up the 
 burden of life again just yet. But its rest could 
 not be long; there was someone it must find,
 
 128 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 and before he had gone again to that boundless 
 land, whose haunting spirits were impalpable as 
 flecks of mist. And then it moaned and wept, 
 and seemed to live over its past, and I went back 
 with it, or I was one with it I cannot define. It 
 recalled many scenes, but only one made an im- 
 pression on my memory; I can recall no other." 
 She paused abruptly, but Dartmouth made no 
 comment; he stood motionless in breathless ex- 
 pectancy. She put her hand to her head, and 
 after a moment continued haltingly: 
 
 " I oh I hardly know how to tell it. I 
 seemed to be standing with you in a room more 
 familiar to me than any room in this castle; a 
 room full of tapestries and skins and cushions 
 and couches; a room which if I had seen it in a 
 picture I should have recognized as Oriental, al- 
 though I have never seen an Oriental room. I 
 have always had an indescribable longing to see 
 Constantinople, and it seemed to me in that 
 dream as if I had but to walk to the window and 
 look down upon it as if I had looked down upon 
 it many times and loved its beauty. But although 
 I was with you, and your arms were about me, we 
 were not as we are now as we were before the 
 dream: we had suffered all that a man and a 
 woman can suffer who love and are held apart. 
 And you looked as you do now, yet utterly 
 different. You looked years older, and you were 
 dressed so strangely. I do not know how I
 
 What Dreams May Come. 129 
 
 looked, but I know how I felt. I felt that I had 
 made up my mind to commit a deadly sin, and 
 that I gloried in it. I had suffered because to 
 love you was a sin; but I only loved you the more 
 for that reason. Then you slowly drew me 
 further into the room and pressed me more 
 closely in your arms and kissed me again, and 
 then I oh I do not know it is all so vague 
 I don't know what it meant but it seemed as if 
 the very foundations of my life were being swept 
 away. And yet oh, I cannot explain ! I do 
 not know, myself." And she would have thrown 
 herself headlong on the sofa had not Dartmouth 
 sprang forward and caught her. 
 
 " There, never mind," he said, quickly. " Let 
 that go. It is of no consequence. A dream like 
 that must necessarily end in a climax of inco- 
 herence and excitement." 
 
 He drew her down on the sofa, and for a mo- 
 ment said nothing further. He had to acknowl- 
 edge that she had deepened the mystery, and 
 given no key. A silence fell, and neither 
 moved. Suddenly she raised her head. " What 
 was your dream ? " she demanded. 
 
 " The same. I don't pretend to explain it. 
 And I shall not insult your understanding by 
 inventing weak excuses. If it means anything 
 we will give the problem no rest until we have, 
 solved it. If we cannot solve it, then we are 
 justified in coming to the conclusion that there
 
 130 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 is nothing in it. But I believe we shall get to 
 the bottom of it yet." 
 
 " Perhaps," she said, wearily; " I do not know. 
 I only feel that I shall never be myself again, 
 but must go through life with that woman's bur- 
 den of sin and suffering weighing me down." 
 She paused a moment, and then continued: " In 
 that dream I wore a dress like this, and that is 
 the reason I put it on to-night. I was getting 
 some things in Paris before I left, and I bought 
 it thinking you would like it; I had heard you 
 say that yellow was your favorite color. When 
 my maid opened the door of my wardrobe to-night 
 to take out a dress, and I saw this hanging there, it 
 gave me such a shock that I caught at a chair to 
 keep from falling. And then I felt irresistibly 
 impelled to put it on. I felt as if it were a shroud, 
 vivid in color as it is; but it had an uncanny fas- 
 cination for me, and I experienced a morbid de- 
 light in feeling both spirit and flesh revolt, and 
 yet compelling them to do my will. I never 
 knew that it was in me to feel so, but I suppose I 
 am utterly demoralized by so realistically living 
 over again that awful experience of my child- 
 hood. If it happened again I should either be 
 carried back to the vault for good and all, or end 
 my days in the topmost tower of the castle, with 
 a keeper, and the storms and sea-gulls for sole 
 companions." 
 
 She sat up in a moment, and putting her
 
 What Dreams May Come. 131 
 
 hand on his shoulder, looked him full in the 
 face for the first time. " it seems to me that I 
 know you now," she said, "and that I never knew 
 you before. When I first saw you to-night I 
 shrank from you: why, I hardly know, except 
 that the personality of that woman had woven 
 itself so strongly into mine that for the moment 
 I felt I had no right to love you. But I have 
 never loved you as I do to-night, because that 
 dream, however little else I may have to thank it 
 for, did for me this at least: it seemed to give me 
 n glimpse into every nook and corner of your 
 character; I feel now that my understanding of 
 your strange nature is absolute. I had seen 
 only one side of it before, and had made but 
 instinctive guesses at the rest; but as I stood 
 with you in that dream, I had, graven on 
 my memory, the knowledge of every side and 
 phase of your character as you had revealed 
 it to me many times; and that memory 
 abides with me. I remember no details, but that 
 makes no difference; if I were one with you I 
 could not know you better." She slipped her 
 arms about his neck and pressed her face close 
 to his. " You have one of your attacks of mel- 
 ancholy to-night," she murmured. " You tried 
 to conceal it, and the effort made you ap- 
 pear cold. It was the first thing I thought of 
 when I turned and saw you, in spite of all I felt 
 myself. And although you had described those
 
 132 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 attacks before, the description had conveyed 
 little to me; that your moods were different from 
 other people's blues had hardly occurred to me, 
 we had been so happy. But now I understand. 
 I pay for the knowledge with a high price; but 
 that is life, I suppose." 
 
 IX. 
 
 Two DAYS later Dartmouth received a des- 
 patch from the steward of his estates in the 
 north of England announcing that there was 
 serious trouble among his tenantry, and that his 
 interests demanded he should be on the scene 
 at once. The despatch was brought to his 
 room, and he went directly down to the hall, 
 where he had left Weir, and told her he must 
 leave her for a few days. She had been standing 
 by the fire-place warming her foot on the fender, 
 but she sat suddenly down on a chair as he 
 explained to her the nature of the telegram. 
 " Harold," she said, " if you go you will never 
 come back" 
 
 " My dear girl," he said, " that speech is un- 
 worthy of you. You are not the sort of woman 
 to believe in such nonsense as presentiments." 
 
 " Presentiments may be supernatural," she 
 said, " but not more so than the experience we 
 have had. 89 long as you are with me I feel 
 comparatively untroubled, but if you go I know 
 that something will happen."
 
 Dreams May Come 133 
 
 He sat down on the arm of her chair and took 
 her hand. " You are low-spirited yet," he said, 
 " and consequently you take a morbid view of 
 everything. That is all. I am beginning to 
 doubt if the dream we had was anything more 
 than the most remarkable dream on record; if 
 it were otherwise, two such wise heads as ours 
 would have discovered the hidden meaning 
 by this time. And, granting that, you must 
 also grant that if anything were going to hap- 
 pen, you could not possibly know it; nor 
 will predicting it bring it about. I will be 
 with you in two days from this hour, and you 
 will only remember how glad you were to get 
 rid of me." 
 
 " I hope so," she said. " But is it absolutely 
 necessary for you to go ?" 
 
 " Not if you don't mind living on bread and 
 cheese for a year or two. The farms of my an- 
 cestral home make a pretty good rent-roll, but if 
 my tenants become the untrammelled communists 
 my steward predicts, we may have to camp out 
 on burnt stubble for some time to come. It is 
 in the hope of inducing them to leave me at least 
 the Hall to take a bride to that I go to interview 
 them at once. I may be too late, but I will do 
 my best." 
 
 " You will always joke, I suppose," she said, 
 smiling a little; "but comeback to me." 
 
 He left Rhyd-Alwyn that evening and arrived
 
 134 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 at Crumford Hall the next morning. He slept 
 little during the journey. His mood was still 
 upon him, and without consideration for Weir as 
 an incentive it was more difficult to fight it off; 
 indeed, it was almost a luxury to yield to it. 
 Moreover, although it had been easy enough to 
 say he would think no more about his vision and 
 its accompanying incidents, it was not so easy to 
 put the determination into practice, and he found 
 himself spending the night in the vain attempt 
 to untangle the web, and in endeavoring to an- 
 alyze the subtle, uncomfortable sense of mystery 
 which those events had left behind them. Tow- 
 ard morning he lost all patience with himself, 
 and taking a novel out of his bag fixed his mind 
 deliberately upon it; and as the story was rather 
 stupid, it had the comfortable effect of sending 
 him to sleep. 
 
 When he arrived at his place he found that the 
 trouble was less serious than his steward had 
 represented. The year had been unproduc- 
 tive, and his tenants had demanded a lower- 
 ing of their rents; but neither flames nor impre- 
 cations were in order. Dartmouth was inclined 
 to be a just man, and, moreover, he was very 
 much in love, and anxious to get away; conse- 
 quently, after a two days' examination of the situ^ 
 ation in all its bearings, he acceded in great part 
 to their demands and gave his lieutenant orders 
 to hold the reins lightly during the coming year.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 135 
 
 On the second night after his arrival he went into 
 his study to write to Weir. He had been so busy 
 heretofore that he had sent her but a couple of 
 lines at different times, scribbled on a leaf of his 
 note-book, and he was glad to find the opportu- 
 nity to write her a letter. He had hoped to 
 return to her instead, but had found several 
 other matters which demanded his attention, and 
 he preferred to look into them at once ; other- 
 wise he would be obliged to return later on. 
 
 His study was a comfortable little den just off 
 the library, and its four walls had witnessed the 
 worst of his moods and the most roseate of his 
 dreams. In it he had frequently sat up all night 
 talking with his grandmother, and the atmos- 
 phere had vibrated with some hot disputes. 
 There was a divan across one end, some book- 
 shelves across the other, and on one side was a 
 desk with a revolving chair before it. Above the 
 desk hung a battle-axe which he had brought 
 from America. Opposite was a heavily-curtained 
 window, and near it a door which led into 
 his private apartments. Between was a heavy 
 piece of furniture of Byzantine manufacture. As 
 he entered the little room for the first time since 
 his arrival, he stood for a moment with a retro- 
 spective smile in his eyes. He almost fancied he 
 could see his grandmother half-reclining on one 
 end of the divan, with a pillow beneath her elbow, 
 her stately head, with its tower of white hair,
 
 136 WJiat Dreams May Come. 
 
 thrown imperiously, somewhat superciliously 
 back, as her eyes flashed and her mouth poured 
 forth a torrent of overwhelming argument. 
 "Poor old girl!" he thought; "why do women 
 like that have to die? How she and Weir would 
 have argued, to put it mildly. I am afraid I 
 should have had to put a continent between 
 them. But I would give a good deal to see her 
 again, all the same." 
 
 He shut the door, sat -down before his desk, 
 and took a bunch of keys from his pocket. As 
 he did so, his eyes fell upon one of curious 
 workmanship, and he felt a sudden sense of 
 pleasant anticipation. That key opened the By- 
 zantine chest opposite, somewhere in whose cun- 
 ningly hidden recesses lay, he was convinced, 
 the papers which he had once seen in his grand- 
 mother's clenched hands. He did not believe she 
 had destroyed them; she had remarked a few 
 days before her death which had been sudden 
 and unexpected that she must soon devote an 
 unpleasant hour to the burning of old letters and 
 papers. She had spoken lightly, but there had 
 been a gleam in her eyes and a tightening of her 
 lips which had suggested the night he had seen 
 her look as if she wished that the papers between 
 her fingers were a human throat. Should he find 
 those papers and pass away a dull evening ? 
 There was certainly nothing but the obstinacy of 
 the chest to prevent, and she would forgive him
 
 What Dreams May Come. 137 
 
 more than that. He had always had a strong 
 curiosity in regard to those papers, but his curi- 
 osity so far had been an inactive one; he had 
 never before been alone at the Hall since his 
 grandmother's death. He wheeled about on his 
 chair and looked whimsically at the divan. " Have 
 I your permission, O most fascinating of grand- 
 mothers?" he demanded aloud. "No answer. 
 That means I have. So be it." 
 
 He wrote to Weir, then went over and kneeled 
 on one knee before the chest. It looked out- 
 wardly like a high, deep box, and was covered 
 with heavy Smyrna cloth, and ornamented with 
 immense brass handles and lock. Dartmouth 
 fitted the key into a small key-hole hidden in the 
 carving on the side of the lock, and the front of 
 the chest fell outward. He let it down to the 
 floor, then gave his attention to the interior. It 
 was as complicated as the exterior was plain. On 
 one side of the central partition were dozens 
 of little drawers, on the other as many slides and 
 pigeon-holes and alcoves. On every square inch 
 of wood was a delicate tracery, each different, 
 each telling a story. The handles of the drawers, 
 the arcades of the alcoves, the pillars of the 
 pigeon-holes all were of ivory, and all were 
 carved with the fantastic art of the Mussulman. 
 It was so beautiful and so intricate that for a time 
 Dartmouth forgot the papers. He had seen it 
 before, but it was a work of art which required
 
 138 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 minute observation and study of its details to 
 be appreciated. After a time, however, he re 
 curred to his quest and took the drawers out, one 
 by one, laying them on the floor. They were 
 very small, and not one of them contained so 
 much as a roseleaf. At the end of each fourth 
 shelf which separated the rows of drawers, was a 
 knob. Dartmouth turned one and the shelf fell 
 from its place. He saw the object. Behind 
 each four rows of drawers was a room. Each of 
 these rooms had the dome ceiling and Byzantine 
 pillars of a mosque, and each represented a dif- 
 ferent portion of the building presumably that 
 of St. Sophia. The capitals of the pillars were 
 exquisite, few being duplicated, and the shafts 
 were solid columns of black marble, supported on 
 bases of porphyry. The floor was a network of 
 mosaics, and the walls were a blaze of colored mar- 
 bles. The altar, which stood in the central room, 
 was of silver, with trappings of gold-embroidered 
 velvet, and paraphernalia of gold. Dartmouth was 
 entranced. He had a keen love of and apprecia- 
 tion for art, but he had never found anything as 
 interesting as this. He congratulated himself 
 upon the prospect of many pleasant hours in its 
 company. 
 
 He let it go for the present and pressed his 
 finger against every inch of the walls and floor and 
 ceilings of the mosque, and of the various other 
 apartments. It was a good half-hour's work, and
 
 What Dreams May Come. 139 
 
 the monotony and non-success induced a certain 
 nervousness. His head ached and his hand 
 trembled a little. When he had finished, and no 
 panel had flown back at his touch, he threw him- 
 self down, on one hand with an exclamation of 
 impatience, and gazed with a scowl at the non- 
 committal beauty before him. He cared nothing 
 for its beauty at that moment. What he wanted 
 were the papers, and he was determined to find 
 them. He stood up and examined the top of the 
 chest. There was certainly a space between the 
 visible depths of the interior and the back wall. 
 He rapped loudly, but the wood and the stuff with 
 which it was covered were too thick; there was 
 no answering ring. He recalled the night when 
 he had cynically examined the fragments of the 
 broken cabinet at Rhyd-Alwyn. He felt any- 
 thing but cynical now; indeed, he was conscious 
 of a restless eagerness and a dogged determina- 
 tion with which curiosity had little to do. He 
 would find those papers if he died in the attempt. 
 He knelt once more before the chest, and once 
 more pressed his finger along its interior, follow- 
 ing regular lines. Then he shook the pillars, 
 and inserted his penknife in each most minute 
 interstice of the carving; he prodded the ribs 
 of the arches, and brought his fist down violently 
 on the separate floors of the mosque. At the 
 end of an hour he sprang to his feet with a 
 smothered oath, and cutting a slit in the cover of
 
 140 WJiat Dreams May Come. 
 
 the chest with his penknife, tore it off and ex- 
 amined the top and sides as carefully as his 
 strained eyes and trembling hands would allow. 
 He was ashamed of his nervousness, but he was 
 powerless to overcome it. His examination met 
 with no better success, and he suddenly sprang 
 across the room and snatched the battle-axe 
 from the wall. He walked quickly back to the 
 chest. For a moment he hesitated, the thing 
 was so beautiful ! But only for a moment. The 
 overmastering desire to feel those papers in his 
 hands had driven out all regard for art. He 
 lifted the axe on high and brought it down on 
 the top of the chest with a blow which made the 
 little room echo. He was a powerful man, and 
 the axe was imbedded to its haft. He worked 
 it out of the tough wood and planted another 
 blow, which widened the rift and made the stout 
 old chest creak like a falling tree. The muti- 
 lated wood acted upon Dartmouth like the smell 
 of blood upon a wolf: the spirit of destruction 
 leaped up and blazed within him, a devouring 
 flame, and the blows fell thick and fast. He felt 
 a fierce delight in the havoc he was making, in the 
 rare and exquisite beauty he was ruining beyond 
 hope of redemption. He leaned down, and swing- 
 ing the axe outward, sent it straight through the 
 arcades and pillars, the mosques and images, 
 shattering them to bits. Then he raised the axe 
 again and brought it down on the seam which
 
 What Dreams May Cotnc. 141 
 
 joined the back to the top. The blow made but 
 little impression, but a succession of blows pro- 
 duced a wide gap. Harold inserted the axe in the 
 rift, and kneeling on the chest, attempted to force 
 the back wall outward. For a time it resisted his 
 efforts, then it suddenly gave way, and Dartmoth 
 dropped the axe with a cry. From a shelf below 
 the roof a package had sprung outward with the 
 shock, and a small object had fallen with a clatter 
 on the prostrate wall. Dartmouth picked it up in 
 one hand and the papers in the other, his ringers 
 closing over the latter with a joy which thrilled 
 him from head to foot. It was a joy so great 
 that it filled him with a profound peace; the 
 excitement of the past hour suddenly left him. 
 He went over to his desk and sat down before 
 it. With the papers still held firmly in his hand, 
 he opened the locket. There were two pictures 
 within, and as he held them up to the light he 
 was vaguely conscious that he should feel a 
 shock of surprise; but he did not. The pictures 
 were those of Lady Sioned Penrhyn and him- 
 self ! With the same apparent lack of mental 
 prompting as on the night in the gallery when he 
 had addressed Weir with the name of her grand- 
 mother, he raised the picture of the woman to his 
 lips and kissed it fondly. Then he laid it down 
 and opened the packet. Within were a thick. 
 piece of manuscript and a bundle of letters. He 
 pressed his hand lovingly over the closely written
 
 142 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 sheets of the manuscript, but laid them down 
 and gave his attention to the letters. They were 
 roughly tied into a bundle with a bit of string. 
 He slipped the string off and glanced at the 
 address of the letter which lay uppermost. The 
 ink, though faded, was legible enough " Lady 
 Sioned-ap-Penrhyn, Constantinople." He opened 
 the letter and glanced at the signature. The 
 note was signed with the initials of his grand- 
 father, Lionel Dartmouth. They were peculiarly 
 formed, and were in many of the library books. 
 
 He turned back to the first page. As he did 
 so he was aware of a new sensation, which 
 seemed, however, but a natural evolution in his 
 present mental and spiritual exaltation. It was as 
 if the page were a blank sheet and he were wielding 
 an invisible pen. Although, before he took up the 
 letter, he had had no idea of its contents beyond 
 a formless, general intuition, as soon as he began 
 to read he was clearly aware of every coming 
 word and sentence and sentiment in it. So 
 strong was the impression, that once he involun- 
 tarily dropped the note and, picking up a pen, 
 began hastily writing what he knew was on the 
 unread page. But his mind became foggy at 
 once, and he threw down the pen and returned 
 to the letter. Then the sense of authorship and 
 familiarity returned. He read the letters in the 
 order in which they came, which was the 
 order of their writing. Among them were some
 
 What Dreams May Come. 143 
 
 pages of exquisite verse: and verses and letters 
 alike were the words of a man to a woman whom 
 he loved with all the concentration and intensity 
 of a solitary, turbulent, passionate nature; who 
 knew that in this love lay his and her only hap- 
 piness; and who would cast aside the orthodoxy 
 of the world as beneath consideration when bal- 
 anced against the perfecting of two human lives. 
 They reflected the melancholy, ill-regulated na- 
 ture of the man, but they rang with a tenderness 
 and a passion which were as unmistakable as the 
 genius of the writer; and Harold knew that if the 
 dead poet had never loved another woman he had 
 loved Sioned Penrhyn. Or had he loved her 
 himself ? Or was it Weir? Surely these letters 
 were his. He had written them to that beautiful 
 dark-eyed woman with the jewels about her head. 
 He could read the answers between the lines; he 
 knew them by heart; the passionate words of the 
 unhappy woman who had quickened his genius 
 from its sleep. Ah, how he loved her, his beau- 
 tiful Weir ! No Sioned was her name, Sioned 
 Penrhyn, and her picture hung in the castle where 
 the storms beat upon the grey Welsh cliffs 
 
 thousands of miles away 
 
 If he had but met her earlier he might to-day 
 be one of that brilliant galaxy of poets whose 
 music the whole world honored. Oh ! the 
 wasted years of his life, and his half-hearted at- 
 tempts to give to the world those wonderful
 
 144 What Dreams May Conic. 
 
 children of his brain ! He had loved and been 
 jealous of them, those children, and they had 
 multiplied until it had seemed as if they would 
 prove stronger than his will. But he had let 
 them sing for himself alone; he would give 
 the world nothing until one day in that densely 
 peopled land of his brain there should go up a 
 paean of rejoicing that a child, before which their 
 own glory paled, had been born. And above the 
 tumult should rise the sound of such a strain of 
 music as had never been heard out of heaven; 
 and before it the world should sink to its 
 knees. . . . 
 
 And it had come to pass at last, this dream. 
 This woman had awakened his nature from its 
 torpor, and with the love had come, leaping, rush- 
 ing, thundering, a torrent of verse such as had 
 burst from no man's brain in any age. 
 
 And to her he owed his future, his fame, and 
 his immortal name. And she would be with him 
 always. She had struggled and resisted and re- 
 fused him speech, but the terrible strength of her 
 nature had triumphed over dogmas and over 
 the lesser duties she owed to others ; of her 
 freewill she had sent for him. He would be with 
 her in an hour, and to-morrow they would have 
 left codes and conventions behind them. There 
 was a pang in leaving this beautiful room where 
 his poem had been born, and beneath which lay 
 such a picture as man sees nowhere else on earth.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 145 
 
 But to that which was to come, what was this ? 
 He would write a few lines to the woman who 
 bore his name, and then the time would have 
 come to go. She too was a beautiful and a bril- 
 liant woman, but her nature was narrow and cold, 
 and she had never understood him for a moment. 
 There ! he had finished, and she would be hap- 
 pier without him. She had her world and her 
 child that beautiful boy ! But this was no time 
 for pangs. He had chosen his destiny, and a 
 man cannot have all things. It was time to go. 
 Should he take one last glance at the boy laugh- 
 ing in the room beyond ? He had but to push 
 the tapestry aside, yes there God ! 
 
 Ah, it was grateful to get into the cool air of 
 the street, and before him, only a short distance 
 away, were the towers of the Embassy. Would 
 he never reach them ? The way had been so 
 long could it be that his footsteps were already 
 echoing on the marble floor which led to that 
 chamber? Yes, and the perfume of that jasmine- 
 laden room was stealing over his senses, and the 
 woman he loved was in his arms. How the 
 golden sunset lay on the domes and minarets 
 below! How sonorous sounded the voices of 
 the muezzins as they called the people to prayer ! 
 There was music somewhere, or was it the wails 
 for the dead down in Galata ? It was all like a 
 part of a dream, and the outlines were blurred 
 and confused What was that? A thunderclap?
 
 146 W hat Dreams May Come. 
 
 Why were he and Sioned lying prostrate there, 
 she with horror in her wide-open, glassy eyes, he 
 with the arms which had held her lying limply on 
 the blood-stained floor beside him ? He seemed 
 to see them both as he hovered above. It was 
 death? Well, what matter? She had gone out 
 with him; and in some cloud-walled castle, mur- 
 murous with harmonies of quiring spheres, and 
 gleaming with their radiance, they would dwell 
 together. Human vengeance could not reach 
 them there, and for love there is no death. The 
 soul cannot die, and love, its chiefest offspring, 
 shares its immortality. It persists throughout 
 the ages, like the waves of music that never 
 cease. He would take her hand and lead her 
 upward Where was she ? Surely she must be 
 by his side. But he could see no one, feel no 
 presence. God ! had he lost her? Had she 
 been borne upward and away, while he had lin- 
 gered, fascinated with the empty clay that a 
 moment since had been throbbing with life and 
 keenest happiness? But he would find her 
 even did he go to the confines of Eternity. But 
 where was he ? He could see the lifeless shells 
 no longer. He was roaming on on in avast, 
 grey, pathless land, without light, without sound, 
 unpeopled, forsaken. These were the plains of 
 Fyternity ! the measureless, boundless, sun- 
 forgotten region, whose monarch was Death, and 
 whose avenging angel Silence ! An eternal
 
 What Dreams May Come. 147 
 
 twilight more desolate than the blackness of 
 night, a twilight as of myriads of ghostly lan- 
 terns shedding their colorless rays upon an awful, 
 echoless solitude. He would never find her here. 
 The dead of ages were about him the troubled 
 spirits who had approached the pale, stern gates 
 of the Hereafter with rapture, and found within 
 their portals not rest, but a ceaseless, weary, pur- 
 poseless wandering; the world-tired souls of 
 aged men pursuing their never-ending quest in 
 meek, faltering wonder, and longing for the goal 
 which surely they must reach at last; the white, 
 unquestioning souls of children floating like 
 heavenly strains of unheard music in the void 
 immensity; but one and all invisible' impon- 
 derable. They were there, the monarchs of 
 buried centuries and the thousands who had 
 knelt at their thrones; the high and the low, the 
 outcast and the shrived, but each as alone as if 
 the solitary inhabitant of all Space. And he, who 
 would have fled from his fellow-men on earth, 
 must long in vain for the sound of human voice or 
 the rapture of human touch. He must go on on 
 in these colorless, shadowless, haunted plains, 
 until the last trumpet-blast should awaken the 
 echoes of the Universe and summon him to con- 
 front his Maker and be judged. Oh ! if but once 
 more he could see the earth he had scorned ! 
 Was it spinning on its way still, that dark, tiny 
 ball ? How long since he had given that last
 
 148 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 glance of farewell ? It must be years and years 
 and years, as reckoned by the time of men, for in 
 Eternity there is no time. And Sioned where 
 was she ? Desolate and abandoned, shrieked at 
 by sudden winds, flying terrified and helpless 
 over level, horizonless plains only to fling herself 
 upon the grey waves of Death's noiseless ocean ? 
 Oh, if he could but find her and make her forget! 
 Together, what would matter death and silence 
 and everlasting unrest ? All would be forgot, 
 all but the exquisite pain of the regret for the 
 years he had wasted on earth, and for the soli- 
 tary heritage he had left the world. Those chil- 
 dren of his brain ! They were with him still. 
 Would that he had left them below to sing his 
 name down through the ages ! They were a 
 torment to him here, in their futility and inaction. 
 They could not sing to these shapeless ghosts 
 about him; their voices would be unheeded 
 music; nor would any strain sweep downward to 
 that world whose tears he might have drawn, 
 whose mirth provoked, whose passions played 
 upon at his will. The one grand thing he had 
 done must alone speak for him. There was in 
 it neither pathos nor mirth; it had sprung to the 
 cloud-capped point of human genius, and its 
 sublimity would prove its barrier to the world's 
 approval. But it would give him fame when 
 God ! what was that thought ? The manuscript 
 of that poem had lain in the room where he had
 
 ]V licit Dreams May Come. 149 
 
 met his death. Had the hand that had slain him 
 executed a more terrible vengeance still ? Oh, 
 it could not be ! No man would be so base. 
 And yet, what mercy had he the right to expect ? 
 And the nature of the man cold relentless 
 To consign the man who had wronged him to 
 eternal oblivion would he not feel as he watched 
 the ashes in the brazier, that such vengeance 
 was sweeter than even the power to kill ? And 
 he was impotent ! He was a waif tossed about 
 in the chaos of eternity, with no power to smite 
 the man whose crime had perhaps been greater 
 than the thrusting of two lives from existence a 
 few years before their time. He was as pow- 
 erless as the invisible beggar who floated at his 
 side. And that man was on earth yet, perchance, 
 coldly indifferent in his proud position, inwardly 
 gloating at the fullness of his revenge. . . . 
 
 Years7 years, years! They slipped from his 
 consciousness like water from the smooth sur- 
 face of a rock. And yet each had pressed more 
 heavily and stung more sharply than the last. 
 Oh, if he could but know that his poem had been 
 given to the world that it had not been blotted 
 from existence! This was what was meant by 
 Hell. No torture that man had ever pictured 
 could approach the torments of such regret, such 
 uncertainty, such pitiable impotence. Truly, if 
 his sin had been great, his punishment was 
 greater.
 
 150 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 But why was he going downward ? What in- 
 visible hand was this which was resistlessly guid- 
 ing him through the portals of the shadow land, 
 past the great sun and worlds of other men, and 
 down through this quivering ether ? What ? 
 He was to be born again ? A bit of clay needed 
 an atom of animate force to quicken it into life, 
 and he must go again ? And it was to the planet 
 Earth he was going ? Ah ! his poem ! his 
 poem ! He could write it again, and of what 
 matter the wasted generations ? And Sioned 
 they would meet again. Sooner or later, she too 
 must return, and on Earth they would find what 
 had been denied them above. What was that ? 
 His past must become a blank ? His soul must 
 be shorn of its growth ? He must go back to un- 
 remembering, unforseeing infancy, and grow 
 through long, slow years to manhood again ? Still, 
 his genius and his intelligence in their elements 
 would be the same, and with development would 
 come at last the fruition of all his fondest hopes. 
 And Sioned ? He would know her when they met. 
 Their souls must be the same as when the great 
 ocean of Force had tossed them up; and evolu- 
 tion could work no essential change. Ah ! they 
 had entered the blue atmosphere. And, yes 
 there lay the earth below them. How he remem- 
 bered its green plains and white cities and blue 
 waters! And that great island yes, it was 
 familiar enough. It was the land which had
 
 What Dreams May Come. 151 
 
 given him birth, and which should have knelt at 
 his feet and granted him a resting-place amidst 
 its illustrious dead. And this old castle they 
 were descending upon ? He did not remember 
 it. Well, he was to be of the chosen of 
 earth again. He would have a proud name to 
 offer her, and this time it should be an unsullied 
 one. This time the world should ring with his 
 genius, not with his follies. This time Oh, 
 what was this ? Stop ! Stop ! No; he could 
 not part with it. The grand, trained intellect of 
 which he had been so proud the perfected 
 genius which had been his glory they should 
 not strip them from him they were part of him- 
 self; they were his very essence; he would not 
 give them up ! Oh, God ! this horrible shrink- 
 ing ! This was Hell; this was not re-birth. 
 Physical torture ? The words were meaningless 
 beside this warping, this tearing apart of spirit 
 and mind those precious children of his brain 
 limb from limb. Their shrieks for help ! their 
 cries of anguish and horror ! their clutches ! 
 their last spasmodic despairing weakening 
 embrace ! He would hold them ! His clasp 
 would defy all the powers of Earth and Air ! 
 No, they should not go they should not. Oh ! 
 this cursed hand, with its nerves of steel. It 
 would conquer yet, conquer and compress him 
 down into an atom of impotence There ! it had 
 wrenched them from him; they were gone
 
 152 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 gone forever. But no, they were there beside 
 him; their moans for help filled the space, about 
 him; yes, moans they were cries no longer 
 and they were growing fainter they were 
 fading sinking dying and he was shrink- 
 ing 
 
 X. 
 
 HAROLD opened his eyes. The night had 
 gone; the sun was struggling through the heavy 
 curtains; the lamps and the fire had gone out, 
 and the room was cold. He was faint and ex- 
 hausted. His forehead was damp with horror, and 
 his hands were shaking. That terrible struggle 
 in which intellect and its attainments had been 
 wrenched apart, in which the spirit and its mem- 
 ories had been torn asunder ! He closed his 
 eyes for a moment in obedience to his exhausted 
 vitality. Then he rose slowly to his feet, went 
 into his bedroom, and looked into the glass. 
 Was it Harold Dartmouth or the dead poet who was 
 reflected there ? He went back, picked up the 
 locket, and returned to the glass. He looked at 
 the picture, then at his own face, and again at 
 the picture. They were identical; there was not 
 a line or curve or tint of difference. He returned 
 to his chair and rested his head on his hand. Was 
 he this man re-born ? Did the dead come back 
 and live again ? Was it a dream, or had he actu- 
 ally lived over a chapter from a past existence ?
 
 What Dreams May Come. 153 
 
 He was a practical man-of-the-world, not a vague 
 dreamer but all nature was a mystery; this 
 would be no stranger than the general mystery 
 of life itself. And he was not only this man re- 
 produced in every line and feature; he had 
 his nature as well. His grandmother had never 
 mentioned her husband's name, but the Dart- 
 mouths had been less reticent. They were fond 
 of reiterating anecdotes of Lionel Dartmouth's 
 lawless youth, of his moody, melancholy tempera- 
 ment, and above all, of the infallible signs he 
 had shown of great genius. That his genius had 
 borne no fruit made no difference in their esti- 
 mate; he had died too soon, that was all died 
 of fever in Constantinople, the story ran; there 
 had never been a suggestion of scandal. And 
 he had come back to earth to fulfill the 
 promise of long ago, and to give to the world the 
 one splendid achievement of that time. It had 
 triumphed over death and crime and revenge 
 but He recalled those nights of conflict in his 
 mind. Would will and spirit ever conquer that 
 mechanical defect in his brain which denied his 
 genius speech ? 
 
 He drew his hand across his forehead; he was 
 so tired. He pushed the manuscript and letters 
 into a drawer of the desk, and turning the key 
 upon them, opened the window and stepped out 
 into the air. His vitality was at as low an ebb as 
 if from physical overwork and fasting. He made
 
 154 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 no attempt to think, or to comment on the events 
 just past. For the moment they lost their inter- 
 est, and he strolled aimlessly about the park, 
 his exhausted forces slowly recuperating. At 
 the end of an hour he returned to the house and 
 took a cold shower-bath and ate his breakfast. 
 Then he felt more like himself. He had a strong 
 desire to return to his study and the lost manu- 
 script, but, with the wilful and pleasing procras- 
 tination of one who knows that satisfaction is 
 within his grasp, he put the temptation aside for 
 the present, and spent the day riding over his 
 estates with his steward. He also gave his busi- 
 ness affairs a minute attention which delighted 
 his servant. After dinner he smoked a cigar, 
 then went into his study and locked the door. 
 He sat down before the desk, and for a moment 
 experienced a feeling of dread. He wanted no 
 more visions: would contact with those papers 
 induce another ? He would like to read that 
 poem with the calm criticism of a trained 
 and cultivated mind; he had no desire to be 
 whirled back into his study at Constantinople, 
 his brain throbbing and bursting with what was 
 coming next. He shrugged his shoulders. It 
 was a humiliating confession, but there were 
 forces over which he had no control; there was 
 nothing to do but resign himself to the in- 
 evitable. 
 
 He opened the drawer and took out the man-
 
 ir/iat Dreams May Come. 155 
 
 uscript. To his unspeakable satisfaction he re- 
 mained calm and unperturbed. He felt merely 
 a cold-blooded content that he had balked his 
 enemies and that his ambition was to be gratified. 
 Once, before he opened the paper, he smiled at 
 his readiness to accept the theory of reincarna- 
 tion. It had taken complete possession of him, 
 and he felt not the slightest desire to combat it. 
 Did a doubt cross his mind, he had but to recall 
 the park seen by his spiritual eyes, as he de- 
 scended upon it to be born again. It was the 
 park in which he, Harold Dartmouth, had played 
 as a child during his annual visits to his parents; 
 the park surrounding the castle in which he had 
 been born, and which had belonged to his father's 
 line for centuries. For the first time in his life 
 he did not reason. It seemed to him that there 
 was no corner or loophole for argument, nothing 
 but a cold array of facts which must be uncon- 
 ditionally accepted or rejected. 
 
 He spread out the poem. It was in blank 
 verse, and very long. He was struck at once 
 with its beauty and power. Although his soul 
 responded to the words as to the tone of a dear 
 but long unheard voice, still he was spared the 
 mental exaltation which would have clouded his 
 judgment and destroyed his pleasure. He leaned 
 his elbows on the desk, and, taking his head be- 
 tween his hands, read on and on, scarcely draw- 
 ing breath. Poets past and present had been
 
 156 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 his familiar friends, but in them he had found no 
 such beauty as this. The grand sweep of the 
 poem, the depth of its philosophy, the sublimity 
 of its thought, the melody of its verse, the color, 
 the radiant richness of its imagery, the sonorous 
 swell of its lines, the classic purity of its style 
 Dartmouth felt as if an organ were pealing with- 
 in his soul, lifting the song on its notes to the 
 celestial choir which had sent it forth. Heav- 
 enly fingers were sweeping the keys, heavenly 
 voices were quiring the melody they had with 
 wanton hand flung into a mortal's brain. As 
 Harold read on he felt that his spirit had dis- 
 solved and was flowing through the poem, 
 to be blended, unified with it forever. He 
 seemed to lose all physical sensation, not from 
 the causes of the previous night, but from the 
 spiritual exaltation and absorption induced by 
 the beauty and grandeur of the theme. When he 
 had finished, he flung out his arms upon the desk, 
 buried his head in them, and burst into tears. 
 The tears were the result, not so much of ex- 
 treme nervous tension, as of the wonder and awe 
 and ecstacy with which his own genius had filled 
 him. In a few moments his emotion had sub- 
 sided and was succeeded by a state less purely 
 spiritual. He stood up, and leaning one hand 
 on the desk, looked down at the poem, his soul 
 filled with an exultant sense of power. Power 
 was what he had gloried in all his life. His birth
 
 What Dreams May Come. 157 
 
 had given it to him socially, his money had lent 
 its aid, and his personal fascination had com- 
 pleted the chapter. But he had wanted some- 
 thing more than the commonplace power which 
 fate or fortune grants to many. He had wanted 
 that power which lifts a man high above his 
 fellow-men, condemning him to solitude, per- 
 haps, but, in that fiercely beating light, revealing 
 him to all men's gaze. If life had drifted by 
 him, it had been because he was too much of a 
 philosopher to attempt the impossible, too clever 
 to publish his incompetence to the world. 
 
 His inactivity had not been the result of lack 
 of ambition, and yet, as he stood there gazing 
 down upon his work, it seemed to him that he 
 had never felt the stirrings of that passion 
 before. With the power to gratify his ambition, 
 ambition sprang from glowing coals into a 
 mighty flame which roared and swept about him, 
 darted into every corner and crevice of his 
 being, pulsated through his mind and spirit, and 
 temporarily drove out every other instinct and 
 desire. He threw back his head, his eyes flash- 
 ing and his lips quivering. For the moment he 
 looked inspired, as he registered a vow to have 
 his name known in every corner of the civilized 
 world. That he had so far been unable to accom- 
 complish anything in his present embodi- 
 ment gave him no uneasiness at the mo- 
 ment. Sooner or later the imprisoned song
 
 158 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 would force its way through the solid masonry 
 in which it was walled up He gave a short laugh 
 and came down to earth; his fancy was running 
 away with him. 
 
 He folded the poem compactly and put it in his 
 breast pocket, determined that it should never 
 leave him again until a copy was in the hands of the 
 printer. It should be sent forth from Constan- 
 tinople. The poem must be the apparent off- 
 spring of his present incarnation; and as he had 
 never been in Constantinople he must go there 
 and remain for several months before publica- 
 tion. 
 
 He went into the library and sat down before 
 the fire. He closed his eyes and let his head fall 
 back on the soft cushion, a pleasant languor and 
 warmth stealing through his frame. What a 
 future ! Power, honor, adoration the proudest 
 pedestal a man can stand upon. And, as if this 
 were not enough, an unquestioned happiness with 
 the woman he loved with his whole heart. To 
 her advent into his life he owed his complete and 
 final severance from the petty but infinite distrac- 
 tions and temptations of the world. His present 
 without flaw, and his future assured, what was to 
 prevent his gifts from flowering thickly and un- 
 ceasingly in their peaceful soil and atmosphere 
 of calm ? He remembered that his first irresist- 
 ible- impulse to write had come on the night he 
 had met her. Would he owe to her his final
 
 What Dreams May Come. 159 
 
 power to speak, as he had owed to that other 
 He sat suddenly erect, then leaned forward, 
 gazing at the fire with eyes from which all lan- 
 guor had vanished. He felt as if a flash of light- 
 ning had been projected into his brain. That 
 other ? Who was that other ? why was she so 
 marvellously like Weir ? Her grandmother ? 
 Yes, but why had he felt for Weir that sense of 
 recognition and spiritual kinship the moment he 
 had seen her ? 
 
 He sprang to his feet and strode to the middle 
 of the room. Great God ! Was Weir ree'm- 
 bodied as well as himself ? Lady Sioned Pen- 
 rhyn was indisputably the woman he had loved 
 in his former existence that was proved once 
 for all by the scene in the gallery at Rhyd- Alwyn 
 and by the letters he had found addressed to 
 her. He recalled Weir's childhood experience. 
 Had she really died, and the desperate, deter- 
 mined spirit of Sioned Penrhyn taken possession 
 of her body ? Otherwise, why that sense of 
 affinity, and her strange empire over him the 
 night of their mutual vision ? There was some- 
 thing more than racial resemblance in form and 
 feature between Sioned and Weir Penrhyn; there 
 was absolute identity of soul and mind. 
 
 He strode rapidly from one end of the room 
 to the other. Every nerve in his body seemed 
 vibrating, but his mind acted rapidly and se- 
 quentially. He put the links together one by
 
 160 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 one, until, from the moment of his last meet- 
 ing with Sioned Penrhyn at Constantinople to 
 the climax of his vision in his study, the chain 
 was complete. Love, then, as well as genius, 
 had triumphed over the vengeance of Dafyd 
 Penrhyn and Catherine Dartmouth. In that 
 moment he felt no affection for his grandmother. 
 She had worshipped and spoilt him, and had 
 shown him only her better side; but the weakness 
 and evil of her nature had done him incalculable 
 injury, and he was not prepared to forgive her at 
 once. 
 
 He returned to his seat. Truly they all were 
 the victims of inexorable law, but the law was 
 just, and if it took to-day it gave to-morrow. If 
 he and Sioned Penhryn had been destined to 
 short-lived happiness and tragic death in that 
 other existence, there was not an obstacle or bar- 
 rier between them in the present. And if He 
 pushed his chair suddenly back and brought his 
 brows together. A thought had struck him 
 which he did not like. He got up and put 
 another log on the fire. Then he went over to 
 the table and took up a book a volume of Fig- 
 uier. He sat down and read a few pages, then 
 threw down the book, and drawing writing mate- 
 rials toward him, wrote a half-dozen business 
 letters When they were finished, together with 
 a few lines to Weir, and no other correspondence 
 suggested itself, he got up and walked the
 
 What Dreams May Come. 1 6 1 
 
 length of the room several times. Suddenly he 
 brought his fist violently down on the table. 
 
 " I am a fool," he exclaimed. " The idea of a 
 man with my experience with women " And 
 then his voice died away and his hand relaxed, 
 an expression of disgust crossing his face. He 
 sank into a chair by the table and leaned his 
 head on his hand. It was true that he was a 
 man of the world, and that for conventional 
 morality he had felt the contempt it deserved. 
 Nevertheless, in loving this girl the finest and 
 highest instincts of his nature had been aroused. 
 He had felt for her even more of sentiment than 
 of passion. When a man loves a girl whose 
 mental purity is as absolute as her physical, there 
 is, intermingled with his love, a leavening quality 
 of reverence, and the result is a certain purifica- 
 tion of his own nature. That Dartmouth had 
 found himself capable of such a love had been a 
 source of keenest gratification to him. He had 
 been lifted to a spiritual level which he had never 
 touched before, and there he had determined to 
 remain. 
 
 And to have this pure and exquisite love 
 smirched with the memory of sin and vulgar 
 crime! To take into his arms as his wife the 
 woman on whose soul was written the record of 
 temptation and of sin! It was like marrying 
 one's mistress: as a matter of fact, what else was 
 it? But Weir Penrhyn! To connect sin with
 
 i6j \Vhat Dreams May Come. 
 
 her was monstrous. And yet, the vital spark 
 called life or soul, or intelligence, or personal 
 force; whatever name science or ignorance might 
 give it was unchanged in its elements, as his 
 own chapter of memories had taught him. Every 
 instinct in Sioned's nature was unaltered. If 
 these instincts were undeveloped in her present 
 existence, it was because of Weir's sheltered 
 life, and because she had met him this time 
 before it was too late. 
 
 He sprang to his feet, almost overturning the 
 chair. " I can think no more to-night," he ex- 
 claimed. " My head feels as if it would burst." 
 
 He went into his bedroom and poured out a 
 dose of laudanum. When he was in bed he 
 drank it, and he did not awake until late the next 
 day. 
 
 XI. 
 
 IN THE life of every man there comes a time 
 when he is brought face to face with the great 
 problem of morality. The murderer undoubt- 
 edly comprehends the problem in all its signifi- 
 cance when he is about to mount the scaffold , 
 the faithless wife when she is dragged through 
 the divorce court, and her family and friends are 
 humbled to the dust. 
 
 Dartmouth worked it out the next night as he 
 sat by his library fire. He had given the after- 
 noon to his business affairs, but when night
 
 What Dreams May Come. 163 
 
 threw him back into the sole companionship of 
 his thoughts, he doggedly faced the question 
 which he had avoided all day. 
 
 What was sin ? Could anyone tell, with the 
 uneven standard set up by morality and reli- 
 gion ? The world smiled upon a loveless mar- 
 riage. What more degrading ? It frowned upon 
 a love perfect in all but the sanction of the 
 Church, if the two had the courage to proclaim 
 their love. It discreetly looked another way 
 when the harlot of " Society " tripped by with 
 her husband on one hand and her lover on the 
 other. A man enriched himself at the expense 
 of others by what he was pleased to call his busi- 
 ness sharpness, and died revered as a philan- 
 thropist; the common thief was sent to jail. 
 
 Dartmouth threw back his head and clasped 
 his hands behind it. Of what use rehearsing 
 platitudes? The laws of morality were con- 
 cocted to ensure the coherence and homogeneity 
 of society; therefore, whatever deleteriously 
 affected society was crime of less or greater mag- 
 nitude. He and Stoned Penrhyn had ruined the 
 lives and happiness of two people, had made a 
 murderer of the one, and irrevocably hardened the 
 nature of the other: Catherine Dartmouth had 
 lived to fourscore, and had died with unexpiated 
 wrong on her conscience. They had left two 
 children half-orphaned, and they had run the 
 risk of disgracing two of the proudest families in
 
 164 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 Great Britain. Nothing, doubtless, but the clev- 
 erness and promptitude of Sir Dafyd Penrhyn, 
 the secretive nature of Catherine Dartmouth, the 
 absence of rapid-news transit, and the semi-civ- 
 ilization of Constantinople at that time, had pre- 
 vented the affair from becoming public scandal. 
 Poor Weir! how that haughty head of hers would 
 bend if she knew of her grandmother's sin, even 
 did she learn nothing of her own and that sin's 
 kinship! 
 
 Dartmouth got up and walked slowly down the 
 long room, his hands clasped behind him, his 
 head bent. Heaven knew his "sins" had been 
 many; and if disaster had never ensued, it had 
 been more by good luck than good manage- 
 ment. And yet he could trace a certain pun- 
 ishment in every case; the woman punished by 
 the hardening of her nature and the probability 
 of complete moral dementia; the man by satiety 
 and an absolute loss of power to value what he 
 possessed. Therefore, for the woman a sullen 
 despair and its consequences; for the man a 
 feverish striving for that which he could never 
 find, or, if found, would have the gall in the 
 nectar of having let slip the ability to unreservedly 
 and innocently enjoy. 
 
 And if sin be measured by its punishment ! 
 He recalled those years in eternity, with their 
 hell of impotence and inaction. He recalled the 
 torment of spirit, the uncertainty worse than
 
 What Dreams May Come. 165 
 
 death. And Weir? Surely no two erring mor- 
 tals had ever more terribly reaped the reward of 
 their wrong-doing. 
 
 What did it signify ? That he was to give her up ? 
 that a love which had begun in sin must not 
 end in happiness ? But his love had the strength 
 of its generations; and the impatient, virile, con- 
 trol-disdaining nature of the man rebelled. Surely 
 their punishment had been severe enough and 
 long enough. Had they not been sent back to 
 earth and almost thrown into each other's arms 
 in token that guilt was expiated and vengeance 
 satisfied ? Dartmouth stopped suddenly as this 
 solution presented itself, then impatiently thrust 
 a chair out of his way and resumed his walk. 
 The consciousness that their affection was the 
 perpetuation of a lustful love disheartened and 
 revolted him. Until that memory disappeared 
 his punishment would not be over. 
 
 He stopped and leaned his hand on the 
 table. " I thought I was a big enough man to 
 rise above conventional morality," he said. "But 
 I doubt if any man is when circumstances have 
 combined to make him seriously face the ques- 
 tion. He might, if born a red Indian, but not 
 if saturated in his plastic days with the codes 
 and dogmas of the world. They cling, they 
 cling, and reason cannot oust them. The so- 
 ciety in whose enveloping, penetrating atmos- 
 phere he has lived his life decrees that it is a
 
 1 66 IV hat Dreams May Come. 
 
 sin to seduce another man's wife or to live with 
 a woman outside the pale of the Church. There- 
 fore sin, down in the roots of his consciousness, 
 he believes it; therefore, to perpetuate a sinful 
 love I am becoming a petty moralist," he 
 broke off impatiently;" but I can't help it. I am 
 a triumph of civilization." 
 
 He stood up and threw back his shoulders. 
 " Let it go for the present," he said. "At another 
 time I may look at it differently or reason myself 
 out of it. Now I will try 
 
 He looked towards his study door with a flash 
 in his eyes. He half turned away, then went 
 quickly into the little room and sat down before 
 the desk. Every day he would make the attempt 
 to write, and finally that obstinate wedge in his 
 brain would give way and his soul be set free. 
 
 He drew paper before him and took up a pen. 
 For an hour he sat motionless, bending all his 
 power of intellect, all the artistic instincts of his 
 nature to the luring of his song-children from 
 that closed wing in his brain. But he could not 
 even hear their peremptory knocks as on the 
 nights when he had turned from those summonses 
 in agony and terror. He would have welcomed 
 them now and dragged the visitants into the sun- 
 light of his intelligence and forced the song from 
 their throats. 
 
 He took the poem from his pocket and read it 
 over. But it gave him no inspiration, it dulled
 
 What Dreams May Come. 167 
 
 his brain, rather, and made him feel baffled and 
 helpless. But he would not give up; and dawn 
 found him still with his pen in his hand. Then 
 he went to bed and slept for a few hours. That day 
 he gave little attention to his affairs. His mel- 
 ancholy, held at bay by the extraordinary ex- 
 perience through which he had passed, returned 
 and claimed him. He shut himself up in his 
 library until the following morning, and alternated 
 the hours with fruitless attempts to write and 
 equally fruitless attempts to solve the problem in 
 regard to Weir. The next day and night, with 
 the exception of a few hours' restless sleep, were 
 spent in the same way. 
 
 At the end of the third day not a word had 
 flowed from his pen, not a step nearer had he 
 drawn to Weir. A dull despair took possession 
 of him. Had those song-children fled, discour- 
 aged, and was he to be withheld from the one 
 consolation of earthly happiness ? He pushed 
 back the chair in which he had been sitting 
 before his desk and went into the library. He 
 opened one of the windows and looked out. 
 How quiet it was! He could hear the rising 
 wind sighing through the yews, but all nature 
 was elsewise asleep. What was she doing down 
 at Rhyd-Alwyn ? Sleeping calmly, or blindly 
 striving to link the past with the present ? He 
 had heard from her but once since he left. Per- 
 haps she too had had a revelation. He wondered
 
 1 68 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 if it were as quiet there as here, or if the waves at 
 the foot of the castle still thundered unceasingly 
 on. He wondered if she would shrink from him 
 when the truth came to her. Doubtless, for she 
 had been reared in the most rigid of moral con- 
 ventions, and naturally catholic-minded as she 
 was, right, to her, was right, and wrong was wrong. 
 He closed the window and, throwing himself 
 on a sofa, fell asleep. But his dreams were 
 worse than his waking thoughts. He was wan- 
 dering in eternal darkness looking for someone 
 lost ages ago, and a voice beside him was mur- 
 muring that he would never find her, but must 
 go on on forever; that the curse of some crime 
 committed centuries ago was upon him, and that 
 he must expiate it in countless existences and eter- 
 nal torment. And far off, on the very confines 
 of space, floated a wraith-like thing with the lithe 
 grace of a woman whom he had loved on earth. 
 And she was searching for him, but they de- 
 scribed always the same circle and never met. 
 And then, finally, after millions of years, an in- 
 visible hand clutched him and bore him upward 
 onto a plane, hitherto unexplored, then left him 
 to grope his way as he could. All was blackness 
 and chaos. Around him, as he passed them, he 
 saw that dark suns were burning, but there was 
 nothing to conduct their light, and they shed no 
 radiance on the horrors of their world. Below 
 him was an abyss in which countless souls were
 
 What Dreams May Come. 169 
 
 struggling, blindly, helplessly, until they should 
 again be called to duty in some sphere of material 
 existence. The stillness at first was deathlike, 
 oppressive; but soon he became aware of a 
 dull, hissing noise, such as is produced on 
 earth by the fusion of metals. The invisible 
 furnaces were lost in the impenetrable darkness, 
 but the heat was terrific; the internal fires of 
 earth or those of the Bible's hell must be sickly 
 and pale in comparison with this awful, invisible 
 atmosphere of flame. Now and then a planet, 
 which, obeying Nature's laws even here, revolved 
 around its mockery of a sun, fell at his feet a 
 river of fire. There was stillness no longer. 
 The roaring and the exploding of the fusing 
 metals, or whatever it might be, filled the vast 
 region like the hoarse cries of wild beasts and 
 the hissing of angry serpents. It was deafening, 
 maddening. And there was no relief but to 
 plunge into that abyss and drown individuality. 
 He flew downward, and as he paused a moment 
 on the brink, he looked across to the opposite 
 bank and saw a figure about to take the leap 
 like himself. It was a dim, shadowy shape, but 
 even in the blackness he knew its waving grace. 
 And she pointed down into the abyss of blind, 
 helpless, unintelligent torment, and then
 
 i 70 W 'hat Dreams May Come. 
 
 XII. 
 
 DARTMOUTH suddenly found himself standing 
 upright, his shoulders clutched in a pair of strong 
 hands, and Hollington's anxious face a few 
 inches from his own. 
 
 "What the devil is the matter with you, Hal ?" 
 exclaimed Hollington. " Have you set up a 
 private lunatic asylum, or is it but prosaic dys- 
 pepsia? " 
 
 " Becky ! " exclaimed Dartmouth, as he grasped 
 the situation. " I am so glad to see you. Where 
 did you come from?" 
 
 "You frightened your devoted Jones to death 
 with one of your starvation moods, and he tele- 
 graphed for me. The idea of a man having the 
 blues in the second month of his engagement to 
 the most charming girl in Christendom ! " 
 
 " Don't speak to me of her," exclaimed Dart- 
 moute, throwing himself into a chair and cover- 
 ing his face with his hands. 
 
 "Whew! What's up? You haven't quarrelled 
 already? Or won't the governor give his con- 
 sent?" 
 
 " No," said Dartmouth, " that's not it." 
 
 " Then what the devil is the matter ? Is is 
 she dead?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Was she married to some other man be- 
 fore ? " 
 
 "No!"
 
 ll'/iat Dreams May Come. 171 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; I was merely exhausting 
 the field of conjecture. Will you kindly en- 
 lighten me?" 
 
 " If I did, you would say I was a lunatic." 
 
 " I have been inclined to say so occasionally 
 before " 
 
 " Becky, Weir Penrhyn is my " And then he 
 stopped. The ludicrous side of the matter had 
 never appealed to him, but he was none the less 
 conscious of how ridiculous the thing would 
 appear to another. 
 
 " Your what ? Your wife ? Are you married 
 to her already, and do you want me to break it to 
 the old gentleman ? What kind of a character is 
 he ? Shall I go armed ? " 
 
 "She is not my wife, thank God! If she 
 were " 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Harold, explain yourself. 
 Can it be possible that Miss Penrhyn is like too 
 many other women ? " 
 
 Dartmouth sprang to his feet, his face white 
 to the lips. 
 
 "How dare you say such a thing?" he ex- 
 claimed. " If it were any other man but you, 
 I'd blow out his brains." 
 
 Hollington got up from the chair he had taken 
 and, grasping Dartmouth by the shoulders, threw 
 him back into his chair. 
 
 "Now look here, Harold," he said; "let us 
 have no more damned nonsense. If you will in-
 
 iT 2 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 dulge in lugubrious hints which have but one 
 meaning, you must expect the consequences. I 
 refuse to listen to another word unless you come 
 out and speak plain English." 
 
 He resumed his seat, and Dartmouth clasped 
 his hands behind his head and stared moodily at 
 the fire. In a few moments he turned his eyes 
 and fixed them on Hollington. 
 
 "Very well," he said, "I will tell you the 
 whole story from beginning to end. Heaven 
 knows it is a relief to speak; but if you laugh, I 
 believe I shall kill you." 
 
 "I will not laugh," said Hollington. "What- 
 ever it is, I see it has gone hard with you." 
 
 Dartmouth began with the night of the first 
 attempt of his suppressed poetical genius to 
 manifest itself, and gave Hollington a compre- 
 hensive account of each detail of his subsequent 
 experiences, down to the reading of the letters and 
 the spiritual retrospect they had induced. He 
 did not tell the story dramatically; he had no fire 
 left in him; he stated it in a matter-of-fact way, 
 which was impressive because of the speaker's 
 indisputable belief in his own words. Holling- 
 ton felt no desire to laugh; on the contrary, he 
 was seriously alarmed, and he determined to 
 knock this insane freak of Harold's brain to 
 atoms, if mortal power could do it, and regard- 
 less of consequences to himself. 
 
 When Dartmouth had finished, Hollington lit
 
 What Dreams May Come 173 
 
 a cigar and puffed at it for a moment, medita- 
 tively regarding his friend meanwhile. Then he 
 remarked, in a matter-of-fact tone : 
 
 " So you are your own grandfather, and Miss 
 Penrhyn is her own grandmother." 
 
 Dartmouth moved uneasily. "It sounds ridic- 
 ulous but don't chaff." 
 
 " My dear boy, I was never more serious in 
 my life. I merely wanted to be sure that I had 
 got it straight. It is A. B. C. by this time to 
 you, but it has exploded in my face like a keg 
 of gunpowder, and I am a trifle dazed. But, to 
 come down to deadly earnest, will you allow me 
 to speak to you from the medical point of view ? 
 You know I had some idea at one time of afflict- 
 ing the community with one more physician, until 
 we stumbled on those coal mines, and my pros- 
 pective patients were spared premature acquaint- 
 ance with the golden stairs. May I speak as an 
 unfledged doctor, but still as one burdened with 
 unused knowledge ? " 
 
 "You can say what you like." 
 
 " Very well, then. You may or may not be 
 aware that what you are pleased to call the blues, 
 or moods, are, in your case, nothing more or less 
 than melancholia. When they are at their worst 
 they are the form known as melancholia attonita. 
 In other words, you are not only steeped in mel- 
 ancholy, but your brain is in. a state of stupor: 
 you are all but comatose. These attacks are
 
 174 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 not frequent, and are generally the result of a 
 powerful mental shock or strain. I remember 
 you had one once after you had crammed for two 
 months for an examination and couldn't pull 
 through. You scared the life out of the tutors 
 and the boys, and it was not until I threatened 
 to put you under the pump that you came to. 
 Your ordinary attacks are not so alarming to 
 your friends, but when indulged in too fre- 
 quently, they are a good deal more dangerous." 
 
 He paused a moment, but Dartmouth made no 
 reply, and he went on. 
 
 "Any man who yields habitually to melancholia 
 may expect his brain, sooner or later, to degen- 
 erate from its original strength, and relax the 
 toughness and compactness of its fibre. Abso- 
 lute dementia may not be the result for some 
 years, but there will be occasional and painful 
 indications of the end for a long space before it 
 arrives. The indications, as a rule, will assume 
 the form of visions and dreams and wild imagin- 
 ings of various sorts. Now do you understand 
 me?" 
 
 " You mean," said Dartmouth, wheeling about 
 and looking him directly in the eyes, " you mean 
 that I am going mad ? " 
 
 " I mean, my dear boy, that you will be a 
 raving maniac inside of a month, unless you dis- 
 lodge from your brain this horrible, unnatural, 
 and ridiculous idea."
 
 What Dreams May Come. 175 
 
 "Do I look like a madman?" demanded 
 Dartmouth. 
 
 " Not at the present moment, no. You look 
 remarkably sane. A man with as good a brain 
 as yours does not let it go all at once. It will 
 slide from you imperceptibly, bit by bit, until 
 one day there will be a climax." 
 
 "lam not mad," said Dartmouth; "and if 
 I were, my madness would be an effect, not a 
 cause. What is more, I know enough about 
 melancholia to know that it does not drift into 
 dementia until middle age at least. Moreover, 
 my brain is not relaxed in my ordinary attacks; 
 my spirits are prostrate, and my disgust for life is 
 absolute, but my brain except when it has been 
 over-exerted, as in one or two climaxes of this 
 experience of mine is as clear as a bell. ' I have 
 done some of my best thinking with my hand on 
 the butt of a pistol. But to return to the ques- 
 tion we are discussing. You have left one or 
 two of the main facts unexplained. What caused 
 Weir's vision ? She never had an attack of mel- 
 ancholia in her life." 
 
 " Telepathy, induction, but in the reverse 
 order of your solution of the matter. Your call- 
 ing her by her grandmother's name was natural 
 enough in your condition you have acknowl- 
 edged that your melancholia had already taken 
 possession of you. Miss Penrhyn had, for some 
 reason best known to her sleeping self, got her-
 
 176 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 self up to look like her grandmother, and, she 
 being young and pretty, her semi-lunatic obser- 
 ver addressed her as Sioned instead of heaven 
 knows what jaw-breaking Welsh title. Then 
 you went ahead and had the vision, which was 
 quite in keeping with your general lunar condi- 
 tion. I believe you said there was a moon." 
 
 Dartmouth frowned. " I asked you not to 
 chaff," he said. " What is more, I have had mel- 
 ancholia all my life, but delusion never before. 
 But let that pass. The impulse to write what 
 do you say to that ? " 
 
 "The impulse was due to the genius which 
 you have undoubtedly inherited from your 
 grandfather. The inability to put your ideas 
 into verbal form is due to amnesic aphasia. The 
 portion -of your brain through which your genius 
 should find speech is either temporarily para- 
 lyzed or else deficient in composition. You had 
 better go up and see Jackson. He can cure you 
 if anyone can." 
 
 " Do you believe I can be cured ? " 
 " You can certainly make the attempt." 
 Dartmouth threw back his head and covered 
 his face with his hands. "O God!" he ex- 
 claimed, " if you knew the agony of the long- 
 ing to feel the ecstasy of spiritual intoxica- 
 tion, and yet to feel as if your brain were a 
 cloud-bank of knowing that you are divinely 
 gifted, that the world should be ringing with
 
 What Dreams May Come. 177 
 
 your name, and yet of being as mute as if 
 screwed within a coffin!" 
 
 " My dear boy, it will all come out right in the 
 end. Science and your own will can do much, 
 and as for the rest, perhaps Miss Penrhyn will 
 do for you what those letters intimate Sioned 
 did for your grandfather." 
 
 Dartmouth got up and leaned his elbow on the 
 mantelpiece. 
 
 " I do not know that I shall marry Weir Pen- 
 rhyn," he said. 
 
 " Why not ? Because your grandfather had 
 an intrigue with her grandmother ? which, by 
 the way, is by no means clearly proved. That 
 there was a plan on foot to that end the letters 
 pretty well show, but ' 
 
 "I don't care a hang about the sins of my 
 ancestors, or of Weir's either if that were all 
 If I do not marry her it will be because I do not 
 care to shatter an ideal into still smaller bits. I 
 loved her with what little good was left in me. 
 I placed her on a pedestal and rejoiced that I 
 was able so to do. Now she is the woman whose 
 guilty love sent us both to our death. I could 
 never forget it. There would always be a spot 
 on the sun." 
 
 " My God, Harold," exclaimed Hollington, 
 "you are mad. Of all the insane, ridiculous, 
 idiotic speeches that ever came from man's lips, 
 that is the worst."
 
 178 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 "I can't help it, Becky. The idea, the knowl- 
 edge, is my very life and soul; and when you 
 think it all over you will see that there are many 
 things that cannot be explained Weir's words 
 in the gallery, for instance. They coincide ex- 
 actly with the vision I had four nights later. 
 And a dozen other things you can think them 
 out for yourself. When you do, you will under- 
 stand that there is but one light in which to look 
 at the question: Weir Penrhyn and I are Lionel 
 Dartmouth and Sioned Penrhyn reborn, and that 
 is the end of the matter." 
 
 Hollington groaned, and threw himself back in 
 his chair with an impatient gesture. 
 
 " Well," he said, after a few moments' silence, 
 "accepting your remarkable premisses for the 
 sake of argument, will you kindly enlighten me 
 as to since when you became so beautifully com- 
 plete and altogether puerile a moralist ? Sup- 
 pose you did sin with her some three-quarters of 
 a century ago, have not time and suffering puri- 
 fied you both or rather her? I suppose it does 
 not make so much difference about you." 
 
 " It is not that. It is the idea that is revolting 
 that this girl should have been my mistress at 
 any time " 
 
 "But, great heaven! Harold, such a sin is a 
 thing of the flesh, not of the spirit, and the 
 physical part of Sioned Penrhyn has enriched 
 the soil of Constantinople these sixty years.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 179 
 
 She has committed no sin in her present embodi- 
 ment." 
 
 " Sin is an impulse, a prompting, of the spirit," 
 said Dartmouth. 
 
 Hollington threw one leg over the arm of the 
 chair, half turning his back upon Dartmouth. 
 
 'Rot!" he said. 
 
 " Not at all. Otherwise, the dead could sin." 
 
 " I am gratified to perceive that you are still 
 able to have the last word. All I can say is, that 
 you have done what I thought no living man 
 could do. I once read a novel by a famous 
 American author in which one of the characters 
 would not ask the heroine to marry him after 
 her husband's death because he had been guilty 
 of the indelicacy of loving her (although mutely, 
 and by her unsuspected) while she was a mar- 
 ried woman. I thought then that moral senility 
 could go no further, but you have got ahead of 
 the American. Allow me to congratulate you." 
 
 "You can jibe all you like. I may be a fool, 
 but I can't help it. I have got to that point 
 where I am dominated by instinct, not by reason. 
 The instincts may be wrong, because the out- 
 growth of a false civilization, but there they are, 
 nevertheless, and of them I am the product. 
 So are you, and some day you will find it out. 
 I do not say positively that I will not marry 
 Weir Penrhyn. I will talk it over with her, and 
 then we can decide."
 
 i8o What Dreams May Come. 
 
 "A charming subject to discuss with a young 
 girl. It would be kinder, and wiser, and more 
 decent of you never to mention the matter to 
 her. Of what use to make the poor girl misera- 
 ble ?" 
 
 " She half suspects now, and it would come 
 out sooner or later." 
 
 " Then for heaven's sake do it at once, and 
 have it over. Don't stay here by yourself any 
 longer, whatever you do. Go to-morrow." 
 
 "Yes," said Dartmouth, " I will go to-morrow." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 WHEN Dartmouth entered the drawing-room 
 at Rhyd-Alwyn the next evening, a half hour 
 after his arrival, he found Sir Iltyd alone, and 
 received a warm greeting. 
 
 " My dear boy," the old gentleman exclaimed, 
 " I am delighted to see you. It seems an age 
 since you left, and your brief reports of your ill- 
 health have worried me. As for poor Weir, she 
 has been ill herself. She looks so wretched that 
 I would have sent for a physician had she not, in 
 her usual tyrannical fashion, forbidden me. I 
 did not tell her you were expected to-night; I 
 wanted to give her a pleasant surprise. Here 
 she is now." 
 
 The door was pushed open and Weir entered 
 the room. Dartmouth checked an involuntary 
 exclamation and went forward to meet her. She
 
 What Dreams May Come. 181 
 
 had on a long white gown like that she had worn 
 the morning he had asked her to marry him, but 
 the similarity of dress only served to accentuate 
 the change the intervening time had wrought. 
 It was not merely that she had lost her color and 
 that her face was haggard; it was an indefinable 
 revolution in her personality, which made her 
 look ten years older, and left her without a sug- 
 gestion of girlishness. She still carried her head 
 with her customary hauteur, but there was some- 
 thing in its poise which suggested defiance as 
 well, and which was quite new. And the lan- 
 terns in her eyes had gone out; the storms had 
 been too heavy for them. All she needed was 
 the costume of the First Empire to look as if she 
 had stepped out of the locket he had brought 
 from Crumford Hall. 
 
 As she saw Dartmouth, the blood rushed over 
 her face, dyeing it to the roots of her hair, then 
 receded, leaving it whiter than her gown. When 
 he reached her side she drew back a little, but he 
 made no attempt to kiss her; he merely raised 
 her hand to his lips. As he did so he could 
 have sworn he saw the sun flashing on the domes 
 beneath the window; and over his senses stole 
 the perfume of jasmine. The roar without was 
 not that of the ocean, but of a vast city, and 
 hark ! the cry of the muezzin. How weird the 
 tapestry looked in the firelight, and how the 
 figures danced! And he had always liked her to
 
 1 82 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 wear white, better even than yellow. He roused 
 himself suddenly and offered her his arm. The 
 butler was announcing dinner. 
 
 They went into the dining-room, and Dart- 
 mouth and Sir Iltyd talked about the change of 
 ministry and the Gladstone attitude on the Irish 
 question for an hour and a quarter. Weir 
 neither talked nor ate, but sat with her hands 
 clasped tightly in her lap. Dartmouth under- 
 stood and sympathized. He felt as if his own 
 nerves were on the rack, as if his brain had been 
 rolled into a cord whose tension was so strained 
 that it might snap at any moment. But Sir 
 Iltyd was considerate. He excused himself as 
 soon as dessert was removed, on the plea of fin- 
 ishing an important historical work just issued, 
 and the young people went directly to the draw- 
 ing-room. As Dartmouth closed the door Weir 
 turned to him, the color springing into her face. 
 
 " Tell me," she said, peremptorily; " have you 
 discovered what it meant ? " 
 
 He took her hand and led her over to the sofa. 
 She sat down, but stood up again at once. " I 
 cannot sit quietly," she said, " until I know. The 
 enforced repression of the past week, the having 
 no one to speak to, and the mystery of that 
 dream have driven me nearly mad. It was cruel 
 of you to stay away so long but let that pass. 
 There is only one thing I can think of now do 
 you know anything more than when you left?"
 
 IV 'hat Dreams May Conic. 183 
 
 He folded his arms and looked down. "Why 
 should you think I could have learned anything 
 at Crumford Hall ? " he demanded, with appar- 
 ent evasion. 
 
 " Because of the restraint and sometimes inco- 
 herence of your letters. I knew that something 
 had happened to you; you seemed hardly the 
 same man. You seemed like Oh, I do not 
 know. For heaven's sake, tell me what it is." 
 
 " Weir," he said, raising his head and looking 
 at her, " what do you think it is ? " 
 
 She put up her hands and covered her face. " I 
 do not know," she said, uncertainly. ' If there 
 is to be any explanation it must come from you. 
 With me there is only the indefinable but per- 
 sistent feeling that I am not Weir Penrhyn but 
 the woman of that dream; that I have no right 
 here in my father's castle, and no right to the 
 position I hold in the world. To me sin has 
 always seemed a horrible thing, and yet I feel 
 as if my own soul were saturated with it; and 
 what is worse, I feel no repentance. It is as if I 
 were being punished by some external power, not 
 by my own conscience. As if Oh, it is all too 
 vague to put into words Harold, what is it ? " 
 
 "Let us sit down," he said, "and talk it 
 over." 
 
 She allowed him to draw her down onto the 
 sofa, and he looked at her for a moment. Then, 
 suddenly, the purely human love triumphed. He
 
 184 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 forgot regret and disgust. He forgot the teach- 
 ings of the world, and the ideal whose shattering 
 he had mourned. He remembered nothing but 
 that this woman so close to him was dearer than 
 life or genius or ambition; that he loved her 
 with all the strength and passion of which a 
 man is capable. The past was gone, the future 
 a blank; nothing remained but the glorious pres- 
 ent, with its impulses which sprang straight from 
 the heart of nature and which no creed could 
 root out. He flung his arms about her, and the 
 fierce joy of the moment thrilled and shook him 
 as he kissed her. And for the moment she too 
 forgot. 
 
 Then his arms slowly relaxed and he leaned 
 forward, placing his elbow on his knee and cov- 
 ering his face with his hand. For a few mo- 
 ments he thought without speaking. He decided 
 that he would tell her something to-night, but 
 not all. He would give her a clue, and when 
 she was alone she might work the rest out for 
 herself. Then, together, they would decide what 
 would be best to do. He took her hand. 
 
 "I have something to tell you," he said. " I 
 did not tell you before I left because I thought it 
 best not, but things have occurred since which 
 make it desirable you should know. You do not 
 know, I suppose, that on the night of our dream 
 you got up in your sleep and wandered about the 
 castle."
 
 What Dreams May Come. 185 
 
 She leaned suddenly forward. " Yes ? " she said, 
 breathlessly. " I walked in my sleep ? You saw 
 me? Where?" 
 
 " In the gallery that overhangs the sea. I had 
 gone there to watch the storm, and was about to 
 return to my room when I saw you coming tow- 
 ard me. At first I thought you were the spirit of 
 your grandmother of Sioned Penrhyn. In your 
 sleep you had dressed yourself like the picture in 
 the gallery, and the resemblance was complete. 
 Then, strangely enough, I walked up to you and 
 took your hand and called you ' Sioned ' 
 
 " Go on ! " 
 
 " Then you told me that you were dead, and had 
 been wandering in the hereafter and looking for 
 me; that you could not find me there, and so had 
 come back to earth and entered into the body of 
 a dead child, and given it life, and grown to 
 womanhood again, and found me at last. And 
 then you put your cold arms about me and drew 
 me down onto a seat. I suddenly lost all con- 
 sciousness of the present, and we were together 
 in a scene which was like a page from a past ex- 
 istence. The page was that of the dream we 
 have found so difficult a problem, and you read 
 it with me, not alone in your room Weir! 
 What is the matter ? " 
 
 She had pushed him violently from her and 
 sprung to her feet, and she stood before him 
 with wide-open, terror-stricken eyes, and quiver-
 
 1 86 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 ing in every limb. She tried to speak, but no 
 words came; her lips were white and shrivelled, 
 and her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. 
 Then she threw up her arms and fell heavily to 
 the floor. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 AFTER Weir had been carried up-stairs, and he 
 had ascertained that she was again conscious, 
 Dartmouth went to his own room, knowing he 
 could not see her again that night. He did not 
 go to bed; there was no possibility of sleep for 
 hours, and he preferred the slight distraction of 
 pacing up and down the room. After a time he 
 paused in front of the fireplace, and mechani- 
 cally straightened one of the andirons with his 
 foot. What had affected Weir so strangely ? 
 Had the whole thing burst suddenly upon her? 
 He had hardly told her enough for that; but 
 what else could it be? Poor child! And poor 
 Sir Iltyd! How should he explain to him? What 
 story could he concoct to satisfy him ? It would 
 be absurd to attempt the truth; no human being 
 but himself and Weir could comprehend it; Sir 
 Iltyd would only think them both mad. He un- 
 consciously drew in a long breath, expelling the 
 air again with some violence, like a man whose 
 chest is oppressed. And how his head ached! 
 If he could only get a few hours sleep without 
 that cursed laudanum. Hark! what was that?
 
 What Dreams May Come. 187 
 
 A storm was coming up. It almost shook the 
 castle, solid and of stone as it was. But he was 
 glad. A storm was more in tune with his mood 
 than calm. He would go out into the gallery 
 and watch it. 
 
 He left his room and went to the gallery 
 to which he had gone to watch a storm a little 
 over a week ago. A week? It seemed so re- 
 mote that for the moment he could not recall 
 the events of that last visit; his head ached so 
 that everything but physical suffering was tem- 
 porarily insignificant. There was no moon to- 
 night. The sky was covered with black, scurry- 
 ing clouds, and he could only hear the angry, 
 boiling waters, not see them. He felt suffocated. 
 He had felt so all the evening. Besides the pain 
 in his head there was a pressure on his brain; he 
 must have air; and he pulled open one of the 
 windows and stood within it. The wind beat 
 about his head, the sea-gulls screamed in his 
 ears, and the roar of the sea was deafening; but 
 it exhilarated him and eased his head for the 
 moment. What a poem it would make, that 
 black, storm-swept sky, those mighty, thunder- 
 ing waters, that granite, wind-torn coast! How 
 he could have immortalized it once! And he 
 had it in him to immortalize it now, only that 
 mechanical defect in his brain, no that cruel 
 iron hand, would not let him tell the world that 
 he was greater than any to whom its people bent
 
 1 88 What Dreams May Conic. 
 
 their knees. Ah, there it was at last! It had 
 reawakened, and it was battling and struggling 
 for speech as before. Perhaps this time it would 
 succeed! It was strong enough to conquer in 
 the end, and why should not the end have come ? 
 Surely the fire in his brain must have melted that 
 iron hand. Surely, far away, they were singing 
 again. Where were they? Within his brain ? or 
 battling with the storm to reach him ? What 
 were those wraith-like things those tiny forms 
 dancing weirdly on the roaring waters? Ah, 
 he knew. They were the elfins of his brain that 
 had tormented him with their music and fled at 
 his approach. They had flown from their little 
 cells, and were holding court on the storm- waves 
 like fairies on the green. It was like them to 
 love the danger and the tumult and the night. 
 It was like them to shout and bound with the 
 intoxication of the hour, to scream with the gale, 
 and to kiss with frantic rapture the waves that 
 threatened them. Each was a Thought mightier 
 than any known to living man, and in the bosom 
 of maddened nature it had found its element. 
 And they had not deserted him they had fled 
 but for the hour they had turned suddenly and 
 were holding out their arms to him. Ah! he 
 would meet them half-way 
 
 A pair of arms, strong with terror, were sud- 
 denly thrown about him, and he was dragged to 
 the other side of the gallery.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 189 
 
 "Harold!" cried Weir; "what is the matter 
 with you ? Are you mad ? " 
 
 " I believe I am," he cried. " Come to the 
 light. I have something to tell you." 
 
 He caught her by the wrists and pulled her 
 down the gallery until they were under the lan- 
 tern which burned in one of the windows on 
 nights like this as a warning to mariners. She 
 gave a faint scream of terror, and struggled to 
 release herself. 
 
 "You look so strange," she cried. "Let me 
 go." 
 
 " Not any more strange than you do," he said, 
 rapidly. " You, too, have changed since that 
 night in here, when the truth was told to both of 
 us. You did not understand then, nor did I; 
 but I know all now, and I will tell you." 
 
 And then, in a torrent of almost unintelligible 
 words, he poured forth the tale of his discovery: 
 what had come to him in the study at Crumford 
 Hall, the locket he had found, the letters he had 
 read, the episode of his past he had lived over, 
 the poem which had swept him up among the 
 gods in its reading all the sequence of facts 
 whose constant reiteration during every un- 
 guarded moment had mechanically forced them- 
 selves into lasting coherence. She listened with 
 head bent forward, and eyes through which 
 terror, horror, despair, chased each other, then 
 returned and fought together. " It is all true,"
 
 190 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 he cried, in conclusion. " It is all true. Why 
 don't you speak ? Cannot you understand ? " 
 
 She wrenched her hands from his grasp and 
 flung her arms above her head. "Yes," she 
 cried, " I understand. I am a woman for whose 
 sin Time has no mercy; you are a madman, and 
 I am alone! " 
 
 " What are you saying ? " he demanded, thickly. 
 " You are alone ? There is no hope, then ? " 
 
 " No, there is no hope," she said, " nor has the 
 worst ' She sprang suddenly forward and 
 caught him about the neck. " Oh, Harold ! " 
 she cried, "you are not mad. It cannot be ! I 
 cannot think of the sin, or care; I only know 
 that I love you ! love you ! love you ! and 
 that if we can be together always the past can 
 go; even Oh, Harold, speak to me; don't look 
 at me in that way! " 
 
 But his arms hung inertly at his sides, and he 
 looked down into her agonized face with a smile. 
 "No hope ! " he whispered. 
 
 The poor girl dropped in a heap to the floor, 
 as if the life had suddenly gone out of her. 
 Harold gave a little laugh. " No hope ! " he 
 said. 
 
 She sprang to her feet and flew down the gal- 
 lery. But he stood where she had left him. 
 She reached the open window, then turned and 
 for a moment faced him again. " No," she cried, 
 "no hope, and no rest or peace; " and then the 
 storm and the night closed over her.
 
 What Dreams May Come. 191 
 
 He moved to the window after a moment, and 
 leaning out, called her name. There was no an- 
 swer but the shrieking of the storm. The black 
 waters had greedily embraced her, and in their 
 depths she would find rest at last. How would 
 she look down there, in some quiet cave, with 
 the sea-weed floating over her white gown, and 
 the pearls in her beautiful hair ? How exquisite a 
 thing she would be ! The very monsters of the 
 deep would hold their breath as they passed, and 
 leave her unmolested. And the eye of mortal 
 man would never gaze upon her again. There 
 was divinest ecstacy in the thought ! Ah ! how 
 lovely she was ! What a face what a form ! 
 
 He staggered back from the window and gave 
 a loud laugh. At last it had been vanquished 
 and broken that iron hand. He had heard it 
 snap that moment within his brain. And it was 
 pouring upward, that river of song. The elfins 
 had come back, and were quiring like the im- 
 mortals. She would hear them down there, in 
 her cold, nameless grave, with the ceaseless re- 
 quiem of the waters above her, and smile and 
 rejoice that death had come to her to give him 
 speech. His brain was the very cathedral of 
 heaven, and there was music in every part of it. 
 The glad shout was ringing throughout nave and 
 transept like the glorious greeting of Christmas 
 morning. "Her face! Her form!" No, no; 
 not that again. They were no part of the burn-
 
 192 What Dreams May Come. 
 
 ing flood of song which was writhing and surg- 
 ing in his brain. They were not the words which 
 would tell the world Ah ! what was it ? " Her 
 face ! Her form ! 
 
 He groped his way to and fro like a blind man 
 seeking some object to guide him. " Her eyes ! 
 Her hair ! " No, no. Oh, what was this ? Why 
 was he falling falling ? What was that terror- 
 stricken cry ? that wild, white face of an old man 
 above him ? Where had this water come from 
 that was boiling and thundering in his ears? 
 What was that tossed aloft by the wave beyond ? 
 If he could but reach her! She had gone! 
 Cruel Night had caught her in its black arms 
 and was laughing at his efforts to reach her. 
 That mocking, hideous laughter ! how it shrieked 
 above the storm, its dissonance as eternal as his 
 fate! There she was again ! Sioned ! No, she 
 had gone, and he was beating with impotent 
 fury those devouring But who was this bend- 
 ing over him ? the Night Queen, with the stars 
 in her hair? And what was she pressing into 
 his arms ? At last ! Sioned ! Sioned !
 
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