y its dropping out of my hands. I looked and saw that
Jacob was still asleep, and I was rejoiced to see that there was on
his face a look of unwonted happiness, while his lips seemed to move
with unspoken words. Then I turned to my work again, and again woke,
but this time to feel chilled to my very marrow by hearing the voice
from the bed beside me:

'Not with those red hands! Never! never!' On looking at him, I found
that he was still asleep. He woke, however, in an instant, and did not
seem surprised to see me; there was again that strange apathy as to
his surroundings. Then I said:

'Settle, tell me your dream. You may speak freely, for I shall hold
your confidence sacred. While we both live I shall never mention what
you may choose to tell me.'

He replied:

'I said I would; but I had better tell you first what goes before the
dream, that you may understand. I was a schoolmaster when I was a very
young man; it was only a parish school in a little village in the
West Country. No need to mention any names. Better not. I was engaged
to be married to a young girl whom I loved and almost reverenced. It
was the old story. While we were waiting for the time when we could
afford to set up house together, another man came along. He was nearly
as young as I was, and handsome, and a gentleman, with all a
gentleman's attractive ways for a woman of our class. He would go
fishing, and she would meet him while I was at my work in school. I
reasoned with her and implored her to give him up. I offered to get
married at once and go away and begin the world in a strange country;
but she would not listen to anything I could say, and I could see that
she was infatuated with him. Then I took it on myself to meet the man
and ask him to deal well with the girl, for I thought he might mean
honestly by her, so that there might be no talk or chance of talk on
the part of others. I went where I should meet him with none by, and
we met!' Here Jacob Settle had to pause, for something seemed to rise
in his throat, and he almost gasped for breath. Then he went on:

'Sir, as God is above us, there was no selfish thought in my heart
that day, I loved my pretty Mabel too well to be content with a part
of her love, and I had thought of my own unhappiness too often not to
have come to realise that, whatever might come to her, my hope was
gone. He was insolent to me--you, sir, who are a gentleman, cannot
know, perhaps, how galling can be the inso