What I want to know is this: ought I at once to take such
steps as I can to discover the writer of the letter? or ought I to
wait, and apply to Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow? It is a
question--perhaps a very important one--of gaining or losing a
day. Tell me what you think, Mr. Hartright. If necessity had not
already obliged me to take you into my confidence under very
delicate circumstances, even my helpless situation would, perhaps,
be no excuse for me. But as things are I cannot surely be wrong,
after all that has passed between us, in forgetting that you are a
friend of only three months' standing."
She gave me the letter. It began abruptly, without any
preliminary form of address, as follows--
"Do you believe in dreams? I hope, for your own sake, that you do.
See what Scripture says about dreams and their fulfilment (Genesis
xl. 8, xli. 25; Daniel iv. 18-25), and take the warning I send you
before it is too late.
"Last night I dreamed about you, Miss Fairlie. I dreamed that I
was standing inside the communion rails of a church--I on one side
of the altar-table, and the clergyman, with his surplice and his
prayer-book, on the other.
"After a time there walked towards us, down the aisle of the
church, a man and a woman, coming to be married.
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