ght with his wife, who was ill, and that as she had now fallen asleep,
he was going to lie down himself, and try to get a little rest. This
occurred early in the morning; and Mendez rode on, saying that he should
call as he came back in the evening, to inquire how his sister was. Upon
this Malfi went to bed, where he remained some hours--indeed, till he
received a message from his wife, begging him to go to her. When he
entered the room, the first question she asked was whether Gaspar was
gone to Aquila; and on being told that he was, she said she was very
sorry for it, for that she had dreamed she saw a man with a mask lying
in wait to rob him.

"I saw the man as distinctly as possible," she said, "but I could not
see his face for the mask; and I saw the place, so that I'm sure if I
were taken there I should recognize it."

Her husband told her not to mind her dreams, and that this one was
doubtless suggested by the circumstance that had occurred the year
before. "But," said he, "Ripa is safely locked up in jail now, and
there's no danger."

Nevertheless, the dream appears to have made so deep an impression on
the sick woman's fancy, that she never let her husband rest till he
promised to go with his own farm-servant to meet her brother--a
compliance which was at length won from him by her saying that she had
seen the man crouching behind a low wall that surrounded a half-built
church; "and close by," she added, "there was a direction-post with
something written on it, but I could not read what it was."

Now it happened that on the horse-road to Aquila, which Faustina herself
had never travelled, there was exactly such a spot as that she
described. Malfi knew it well. Struck by the circumstance, he desired to
have his dinner immediately, and then, accompanied by his hind, he set
off to meet Gaspar.

In the meanwhile the Spaniard had got his money and made his purchases
in good time, not wishing to be late on the road, so that they had
scarcely got a mile beyond the church when they met him; and in answer
to his inquiries what had brought them there, Malfi related his wife's
dream, adding that he might have spared himself the ride, for he had
looked over the wall, and saw nobody there. "I told her it was
nonsense," he said, "whilst we know your enemy's under such good keeping
at Aquila; but she wouldn't be satisfied till I came."

Mendez, however, appeared exceedingly struck with the dream, inquired
the particula