ng; you are dreaming still. Nothing; there has been
nothing to hear. I have been awake ever since; if there had been
anything to hear, I could not have missed it. Come, sit down. Sip a
little of this water; you are nervous, and over-tired; and tell me
plainly, like a good little soul, what is the matter; for nothing has
happened here; and you ought to know that the Three Nuns is the quietest
house in England; and I'm no witch, and if you won't tell me what's the
matter, I can't divine it."

"Yes, of course," said Mary, sitting down, and glancing round her
wildly. "I don't hear it now; _you_ don't?"

"Do, my dear Mary, tell me what you mean," said Lady Walsingham kindly
but firmly.

Lady Haworth was holding the still untasted glass of water in her hand.

"Yes, I'll tell you; I have been so frightened! You are right; I had a
dream, but I can scarcely remember anything of it, except the very end,
when I wakened. But it was not the dream; only it was connected with
what terrified me so. I was so tired when I went to bed, I thought I
should have slept soundly; and indeed I fell asleep immediately; and I
must have slept quietly for a good while. How long is it since I left
you?"

"More than an hour."

"Yes, I must have slept a good while; for I don't think I have been ten
minutes awake. How my dream began I don't know. I remember only that
gradually it came to this: I was standing in a recess in a panelled
gallery; it was lofty, and, I thought, belonged to a handsome but
old-fashioned house. I was looking straight towards the head of a wide
staircase, with a great oak banister. At the top of the stairs, as near
to me, about, as that window there, was a thick short column of oak, on
top of which was a candlestick. There was no other light but from that
one candle; and there was a lady standing beside it, looking down the
stairs, with her back turned towards me; and from her gestures I should
have thought speaking to people on a lower lobby, but whom from my place
I could not see. I soon perceived that this lady was in great agony of
mind; for she beat her breast and wrung her hands every now and then,
and wagged her head slightly from side to side, like a person in great
distraction. But one word she said I could not hear. Nor when she struck
her hand on the banister, or stamped, as she seemed to do in her pain,
upon the floor, could I hear any sound. I found myself somehow waiting
upon this lady, and was watching her w