In White Raiment Part 37

"I cannot tell, only I recollect that I thought I was in church; I had a curious dream."

Again she hesitated. Her voice had suddenly fallen so that I could scarcely make out the sound of the last word.

"What did you dream? The vagaries of the brain sometimes give us a clue to the nature of such seizures."

"I dreamed that I was wedded," she responded, in a low, unnatural voice.

The next instant she seemed to realise what she had said. With a start of terror she drew herself away from me.

"Wedded? To whom?"

"I do not know," she replied, with a queer laugh. "Of course, it was a mere dream; I saw no one."

"But you heard voices?"

"They were so distorted as to be indistinguishable," she replied readily.

"Are you absolutely certain that the marriage was only a dream?" I asked, looking her straight in the face.

A flash of indignant surprise pa.s.sed across her features, now pale as marble; her lips were slightly parted, her large full eyes were fixed upon me steadfastly, and her fingers pressed themselves into the palms of her hands.

"I don't understand you, Doctor!" she said at length, after a pause of the most awkward duration. "Of course I am not married?"

"I regret if you take my words as an insinuation," I said hastily.

"It was a kind of dream," she declared. "Indeed, I think that I was in a sort of delirium and imagined it all, for when I recovered completely I found myself here, in my own room, with Nora at my side."

"And where were you when you were taken ill?"

"In the house of a friend."

"May I not know the name?" I inquired.

"It is a name with which you are not acquainted," she a.s.sured me. "The house at which I was visiting was in Queen's-gate Gardens."

Queen's-gate Gardens! Then she was telling the truth!

"And you have no knowledge of how you came to be back here in your cousin's house?"

"None whatever. I tell you that I was entirely unconscious."

"And you are certain that the symptoms on that day were the same as those which we all experienced last night? You felt frozen to death?"

"Yes," she responded, lying back in her chair, sighing rather wearily and pa.s.sing her hand across her aching brow.

There was a deep silence. We could hear the throbbing of each other's heart. At last she looked up tremblingly, with an expression of undissembled pain, saying--

"The truth is, Doctor, it was an absolute mystery, just as were the events of last night--a mystery which is driving me to desperation."

"It's not the mystery that troubles you," I said, in a low earnest voice, "but the recollection of that dream-marriage, is it not?"

"Exactly," she faltered.

"You do not recollect the name announced by the clergyman, as that of your husband?" I inquired, eagerly.

"I heard it but once, and it was strange and unusual; the droning voice stumbled over it indistinctly, therefore I could not catch it."

She was in ignorance that she was my bride. Her heart was beating rapidly, the lace on her bosom trembled as she slowly lifted her eyes to mine. Could she ever love me?

A thought of young Chetwode stung me to the quick. He was my rival, yet I was already her husband.

"I have been foolish to tell you all this," she said presently, with a nervous laugh. "It was only a dream--a dream so vivid that I have sometimes thought it was actual truth."

Her speech was the softest murmur, and the beautiful face, nearer to mine than it had been before, was looking at me with beseeching tenderness. Then her eyes dropped, a martyr pain pa.s.sed over her face, her small hands sought each other as though they must hold something, the fingers clasped themselves, and her head drooped.

"I am glad you have told me," I said. "The incident is certainly curious, judged in connexion with the unusual phenomena of last night."

"Yes, but I ought not to have told you," she said slowly. "Nora will be very angry."

"Why?"

"Because she made me promise to tell absolutely no one," she answered, with a faint sharpness in her voice. There were loss and woe in those words of hers.

"What motive had she in preserving your secret?" I asked, surprised.

"Surely she is--"

My love interrupted me.

"No, do not let us discuss her motives or her actions; she is my friend.

Let us not talk of the affair any more, I beg of you."

She was pale as death, and it seemed as though a tremor ran through all her limbs.

"But am I not also your friend, Miss Wynd?" I asked in deep seriousness.

"I--I hope you are."

Her voice was timid, troubled; but her sincere eyes again lifted themselves to mine.

"I a.s.sure you that I am," I declared. "If you will but give me your permission I will continue, with Hoefer, to seek a solution of this puzzling problem."

"It is so uncanny," she said. "To me it surpa.s.ses belief."

"I admit that. At present, to leave that room is to invite death. We must, therefore, make active researches to ascertain the truth. We must find your strange visitor in black."

"Find her?" she gasped. "You could never do that."

"Why not? She is not supernatural; she lives and is in hiding somewhere, that's evident."