I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently with maintaining the strictest reserve on one point.
Concealing from her the very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to suppose that the master of the house was the one person whom I had found to receive me during my sojourn under Mr. Dunross's roof.
"That is strange!" she exclaimed, after she had heard me attentively to the end.
"What is strange?" I asked.
She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave eyes.
"I hardly like speaking of it," she said.
"And yet I ought to have no concealments in such a matter from you.
I understand everything that you have told me—with one exception.
It seems strange to me that you should only have had one old man for your companion while you were at the house in Shetland."
"What other companion did you expect to hear of?" I inquired.
"I expected," she answered, "to hear of a lady in the house."
I cannot positively say that the reply took me by surprise: it forced me to reflect before I spoke again.
I knew, by my past experience, that she must have seen me, in my absence from her, while I was spiritually present to her mind in a trance or dream.
Had she also seen the daily companion of my life in Shetland—Miss Dunross?
I put the question in a form which left me free to decide whether I should take her unreservedly into my confidence or not.
"Am I right," I began, "in supposing that you dreamed of me in Shetland, as you once before dreamed of me while I was at my house in Perthshire?"
"Yes," she answered. "It was at the close of evening, this time.
I fell asleep, or became insensible—I cannot say which.
And I saw you again, in a vision or a dream."
"Where did you see me?"
"I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river—just as I met you on the evening when you saved my life.
After a while the stream and the landscape about it faded, and you faded with them, into darkness.
I waited a little, and the darkness melted away slowly.
I stood, as it seemed to me, in a circle of starry lights; fronting a window, with a lake behind me, and before me a darkened room.
And I looked into the room, and the starry light showed you to me again."
"When did this happen?
Do you remember the date?"
"I remember that it was at the beginning of the month.
The misfortunes which have since brought me so low had not then fallen on me; and yet, as I stood looking at you, I had the strangest prevision of calamity that was to come.
I felt the same absolute reliance on your power to help me that I felt when I first dreamed of you in Scotland.
And I did the same familiar things.
I laid my hand on your bosom.
I said to you:
'Remember me. Come to me.'
I even wrote—" She stopped, shuddering as if a sudden fear had laid its hold on her.
Seeing this, and dreading the effect of any violent agitation, I hastened to suggest that we should say no more, for that day, on the subject of her dream.
"No," she answered, firmly.
"There is nothing to be gained by giving me time.
My dream has left one horrible remembrance on my mind.
As long as I live, I believe I shall tremble when I think of what I saw near you in that darkened room."
She stopped again.
Was she approaching the subject of the shrouded figure, with the black veil over its head?
Was she about to describe her first discovery, in the dream, of Miss Dunross?
"Tell me one thing first," she resumed. "Have I been right in what I have said to you, so far?
Is it true that you were in a darkened room when you saw me?"
"Quite true."
"Was the date the beginning of the month? and was the hour the close of evening?"
"Yes."
"Were you alone in the room?
Answer me truly!"