FullReads

“A woman? What sort of a woman?”

Alford told.

“That is very curious,” the doctor said. “I know a man who used to have a distressing dream. He broke it up by telling his wife about it every morning after he had dreamt it.”

“Unluckily, she isn’t my wife,” Alford said, gloomily.

“But when she was with you, you got rid of the illusions?”

“At first, I used to see hers; then I stopped seeing any.”

“Did you ever tell her of them?”

“No; I didn’t.”

“Never tell anybody?”

“No one but you.”

“And do you see them now?”

“No.”

“Do you think, because you’ve told me of them?”

“It seems so.”

The doctor was silent for a marked space. Then he asked, smiling: “Well, why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Tell your wife.”

“How, my wife?”

“By marriage.”

Alford looked dazed. “Do you mean Mrs. Yarrow?”

“If that’s her name, and she’s a widow.”

“And do you think it would be the fair thing for a man on the verge of insanity–a physical and mental wreck–to ask a woman to marry him?”

“In your case, yes. In the first place, you’re not so bad as all that. You need nothing but rest for your body and change for your mind. I believe you’ll get rid of your illusions as soon as you form the habit of speaking of them promptly when they begin to trouble you. You ought to speak of them to some one. You can’t always have me around, and Mrs. Yarrow would be the next best thing.”

“She’s rich, and you know what I am. I’ll have to borrow the money to rest on, I’m so poor.”

“Not if you marry it.”

Alford rose, somewhat more vigorously than he had sat down. But that day he did not go beyond ascertaining that Mrs. Yarrow was in town. He found out the fact from the maid at her door, who said that she was nearly always at home after dinner, and, without waiting for the evening of another day, Alford went to call upon her.

She said, coming down to him in a rather old-fashioned, impersonal drawing-room which looked distinctly as if it had been left to her: “I was so glad to get your card. When did you leave Woodbeach?”

“Mrs. Yarrow,” he returned, as if that were the answer, “I think I owe you an explanation.”

“Pay it!” she bantered, putting out her hand.

“I’m so poverty-stricken that I don’t know whether I can. Did you ever notice anything odd about me?”

His directness seemed to have a right to directness from her. “I noticed that you stared a good deal–or used to. But people do stare.”

“I stared because I saw things.”

“Saw things?”

“I saw whatever I thought of. Whatever came into my mind was externated in a vision.”

She smiled, he could not make out whether uneasily or not. “It sounds rather creepy, doesn’t it? But it’s very interesting.”

“That’s what the doctor said; I’ve been to see him this morning. May I tell you about my visions? They’re not so creepy as they sound, I believe, and I don’t think they’ll keep you awake.”

“Yes, do,” she said. “I should like of all things to hear about them. Perhaps I’ve been one of them.”

“You have.”

“Oh! Isn’t that rather personal?”

“I hope not offensively.”

He went on to tell her, with even greater fulness than he had told the doctor. She listened with the interest women take in anything weird, and with a compassion for him which she did not conceal so perfectly but that he saw it. At the end he said: “You may wonder that I come to you with all this, which must sound like the ravings of a madman.”

“No–no,” she hesitated.

“I came because I wished you to know everything about me before–before–I wouldn’t have come, you’ll believe me, if I hadn’t had the doctor’s assurance that my trouble was merely a part of my being physically out of kilter, and had nothing to do with my sanity–Good Heavens! What am I saying? But the thought has tormented me so! And in the midst of it I’ve allowed myself to–Mrs. Yarrow, I love you. Don’t you know that?”