I was hastening out after her, when my mother signed to me to stop. She
read the words written on the paper. While they fell slowly, one by one,
from her lips, she pointed toward the open door.
"Light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a
gold-yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little,
lady's hand, with a rosy-red look about the finger nails. The Dream Woman,
Francis! The Dream Woman!"
Something darkened the parlor window as those words were spoken. I looked
sidelong at the shadow. Alicia Warlock had come back! She was peering in
at us over the low window blind. There was the fatal face which had first
looked at me in the bedroom of the lonely inn. There, resting on the
window blind, was the lovely little hand which had held the murderous
knife. I _had_ seen her before we met in the village. The Dream Woman! The
Dream Woman!
XI
I expect nobody to approve of what I have next to tell of myself. In three
weeks from the day when my mother had identified her with the Woman of the
Dream, I took Alicia Warlock to church, and made her my wife. I was a man
bewitched. Again and again I say it--I was a man bewitched!
During the interval before my marriage, our little household at the
cottage was broken up. My mother and my aunt quarreled. My mother,
believing in the Dream, entreated me to break off my engagement.
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