"Do you know," I say in a whisper, "that when he was saying good-bye to me, I seemed to see as clearly as the daylight that we were saying good-bye to each other, not for a little while, but for ever. It was second sight."
"It was fancy," he says, decidedly. "Who could possibly come between you? Who has the power to do it?"
"A woman," I say, dreaming; "her words sounded empty enough to me once—they have a different meaning to-day."
"But how can she do you mischief," asks George, "if you and Vasher thoroughly understand each other?"
"I will tell you my dream first," I say slowly—" about her afterwards."
"I thought I was in a church crowded with people. Among them I saw the faces of mother, and Jack, and Alice, and you, and Dolly, and many others that I knew. Before the altar rails were standing a man and woman; the marriage service was being read, and he was putting a marriage-ring upon the woman's finger. Both the figures seemed familiar to me, but something seemed to hold me back and prevent my seeing distinctly. No one heeded me, although I was standing at the foot of the altar steps. When the service was over, the two turned and descended the steps; and as they stood face to face with me, the cloud lifted, and I saw Silvia Fleming in her marriage robe of white and her marriage ring of gold, and on her beautiful face as she looked at me was that slow, faint, dawning smile that I knew so well. . . . I turned my eyes away from her to look the bridegroom, and there, with a terrible face of shame and horror, stood Paul Vasher. 'Nell!' he cried, and held out his arms to me, and though I knew he was that woman's husband, I strove to get to him as madly as he was striving to get to me, but we could not reach each other. Then church and crowd, and bride and bridegroom, faded away, and in its place I saw the field of rye, and Paul coming quickly across it
