the dream had been. I
could not remember. It seemed some communication had been made to my
brain while I slept, that it had received very clearly, but now that I
was awake it could not retain nor understand it, but it could, and did
remember that I had dreamed of Hop Lee, and that it was a pleasant
dream.

Yes, the man I had murdered had been with me, had spoken to me, and
the impression was that of rest, of calm, of some aching self-reproach
being appeased.

"Just a dream, of course," I said to myself; "but how odd that I
cannot remember at all what he said." An hour perhaps passed by while
I lay quiet, strangely comforted by the dream I had forgotten; and
then I lapsed back into sleep and again Hop Lee was with me, speaking,
telling me something earnestly, exhorting me gently, and again I woke
with a feeling of gratitude, of peace; but I could recall nothing of
what had been said to me.

The light burned steadily beside me, and I sat up and thought.

The feeling of tranquillity that spread through me, so different from
the feverish self-reproach that had gripped me ever since I had killed
Hop Lee was so marked, so wonderful in its effect on me that I could
not feel it was the result of a dream. No, the spirit of the old man
had been there, absolving me of my broken word, absolving me of his
murder. The fact that I could not remember, could not recall or
understand when awake my dream or his words, seemed to shew that in
sleep a mysterious message from a hidden source had been conveyed to
me, which, from its nature and the nature of my ordinary material
brain, could not be received by the latter. From that hour I began to
get well rapidly. Often and often in the long nights or the lonely
quiet days, I tried to call up a dream to me, a vision of either of
them again; often I longed to speak to Suzee once more. But never
again did any shade come to my pillow. He had come that once, of that
I was convinced. To others it would always seem as if I had dreamed
that night. I knew, by some inner sense, I had been spoken to by the
soul of the old dead Chinaman, and forgiven.

The time passed evenly in that calm solitude. Sometimes still I was
burnt with fever and racked with pain and got but poor food, and often
longed for a hand to give me water in the dark nights. And I
longed--ah, how I desired, infinitely, to send to Viola, tell her, and
ask her to come to me!

I felt she would come then, that she would fly to me o