The Argosy — page 256: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Fabric of a Vision. 239 “ Now then, Mary,” he said tenderly. ‘‘ Nightmares again ? What a start you gave!” His voice broke the spell. ‘‘Oh dear,” I said, “I don’t think travelling agrees with me. I never had such dreams before.” And then I lay silent, thinking how strangely that first dream must have affected me, for it to have reproduced itself thus exactly. I couldn’t tell Edward zow about it, because he would wonder so why I hadn’t told him yesterday. So I held my tongue, and when I had listened for some time to the regular breathing that told me he was asleep, I too, dropped into unconsciousness: an unconsciousness which was broken by no more dreams. For the next week we wandered about from one charming spot to another. ‘‘ Where are your roses?” said my husband, one morning. “They don’t seem to flourish in this English air.” They did not, indeed. Though I was young, though my husband seemed to adore me, though we were spending our days in the loveliest English country, I was beginning to feel that my life was hardly worth having. Most of us have had the same dream twice over; but, reader, has it ever happened to you to dream the same dream, and that a horror too deep for description, for seven consecutive nights ? That is what had befallen me. That was what was driving the colour from my cheeks and the hight from my eyes. Every night I met this vision ; every night I woke, feeling as if it were all true ; every morning the relief of daylight was less, and the sense of misery—and misery not without reason—was stronger. I simply could not tell Edward, just decause I suffered so; and after the first two nights I did not even tell him I had been dreaming—though he was never asleep when I woke. 7 On the eighth day we reached Annersley. The inn was full of excursionists, and the only rooms we could get were two tiny apart- ments, with the width of the house between them. I felt a little uneasy when I went to bed. My nerves were beginning to suffer from the strain of this nightly terror. How should I feel when I woke, as—as I knew I should—with that vision still before my eyes —in that little room alone? JI did not like to think of it. When I awoke, the whole room was full of the strong sunlight that streamed through the uncurtained window. I had had a fair, full, per- fect night of sleep. The enchantment was over. ‘The spell was broken. Zhe dream had not come. Oh, the relief of that waking. To feel that the torture was over, that the vision, with its maddening air of reality, had ceased to visit me! I went downstairs humming a tune. ‘What a lovely day—what a pretty place,” I said to Edward. Everything seemed rose-coloured to me. “Yow re looking like yourself again,” he returned. ‘Shall we stay here another day, Mary ?” ‘Qh, yes,” I said eagerly. That was a happy day! GOnmlGaooks (SO