My mind was away from all these
things. My mind was fixed on the vision in the bedroom. What had I seen
trying to murder me? The creature of a dream? Or that other creature from
the world beyond the grave, whom men call ghost? I could make nothing of
it as I walked along in the night; I had made nothing by it by
midday--when I stood at last, after many times missing my road, on the
doorstep of home.
VI
My mother came out alone to welcome me back. There were no secrets between
us two. I told her all that had happened, just as I have told it to you.
She kept silence till I had done. And then she put a question to me.
"What time was it, Francis, when you saw the Woman in your Dream?"
I had looked at the clock when I left the inn, and I had noticed that the
hands pointed to twenty minutes past two. Allowing for the time consumed
in speaking to the landlord, and in getting on my clothes, I answered that
I must have first seen the Woman at two o'clock in the morning. In other
words, I had not only seen her on my birthday, but at the hour of my
birth.
My mother still kept silence. Lost in her own thoughts, she took me by the
hand, and led me into the parlor. Her writing-desk was on the table by
the fireplace. She opened it, and signed to me to take a chair by her
side.
"My son! your memory is a bad one, and mine is fast failing me.
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