inking of his brother and his babe? The thing stood
self-convicted. Echo, echo, echo, flung back in mockery of our agonised
pleadings from the cliffs of the Beyond.

And yet this dream haunted her, especially as it returned to him more
than once, always with a few added details. They often talked of this
supernatural landscape and of the great radiant fan which closed at
night and opened itself by day, wherewith it was illuminated. Barbara
thought it strange that Anthony should have imagined so splendid a
thing. And yet why should he not have done so? If she could picture it
in her own mind, why should he not be able to originate it in his.

She told him all this, only avoiding allusions to the child, the baby
Barbara whom they had lost. For of this child, although she longed
to ask him details as to her supposed appearance, she could not bring
herself to speak. Supposing that he were right, supposing that their
daughter was really growing up yonder towards some celestial womanhood,
and waiting for him and waiting for her, the mother upon whose breast
she had lain, the poor, bereaved mother. Oh! then would not all be worth
while?

Anthony listened and said that he agreed with her; as a lawyer he had
analysed the dream and found in it nothing at all. Nothing more, for
instance, than on analysis is to be found in any and every religion.

"And yet," he added, with that pleasant smile of his which was beginning
to grow so painfully sweet and plaintive in its character, "and yet, it
is very odd how real that landscape and that house are becoming to me.
Do you know, Barbara, that the other night I seemed to be sitting in
it in a great cool room, looking out at the river and the vast fertile
plain. Then you came in, my dear, clad in a beautiful robe embroidered
with violets. Yes, you came in glancing round you timidly like one who
had lost her way, and saw me and cried aloud."

Towards the end Anthony grew worse with a dreadful swiftness. He was to
have gone abroad as usual that winter, but when the time came his state
was such that the doctors shrugged their shoulders and said that he
might as well stop at home in comfort.

Up to the middle of October he managed to get out upon the farm on fine
days to see to the drilling of the wheat and so forth. One rather rough
afternoon he went out thus, not because he wished to, but for the sake
of his spaniel dog, Nell, which bothered him to come into the fresh air.
Not findi