Page:Braddon--Wyllard's weird.djvu/97

Rh "She was a sweet child," said Gudule, "and deserved every indulgence."

"Did she ever tell you anything about the shock which caused her illness?" asked Heathcote of the lay-sister.

"In her right senses never one syllable," answered Gudule. "I would not have questioned her upon that subject for worlds, for I believed that she had narrowly escaped madness. But during the six months in which I nursed her—for her health was completely broken, and it required all that time to build up her strength and calm her nerves—she used to sleep in a little bed close to mine, and in her troubled dreams I used to hear very strange things. How far the dreams were inspired by the recollections of real events, I cannot venture to say; but there were phrases that recurred so often—a horrible vision which so continually repeated itself, like a scene in a play—that I can but suppose it to have been the representation of some event which had really happened before the child's waking eyes."

"Can you recall the nature of that vision?" inquired Heathcote breathlessly.

It seemed to him that he was on the threshold of a new mystery—as terrible as the old one, and even darker: a tragedy hidden in the past, reflected only in a child's fever-dream.

"You should ask me if I can forget it, Monsieur," said Sister Gudule. "I wish with all my heart that I could. I have prayed many a prayer for oblivion. The poor child used to be feverish every night—a low fever, which only came on in the evening, but some nights were worse than others—and in her most feverish nights this dream seemed almost inevitable. I used to lie awake expecting it, dreading it."

"She used to talk in her sleep, then?"

"To talk, yes; and to scream—a terrible shriek sometimes, which would disturb every sleeper in the great dormitory adjoining my little room. She would start up on her pillow, and stare straight before her with wide-open eyes, being fast asleep all the time, you understand. 'Don't kill her, don't kill her!' she would cry; 'don't shoot her!' And then she would rock herself backwards and forwards, and moan in a low voice, 'The forest—the dark, dark forest; she is there, always there, with the blood running down her dress! Take her away, take away the dark forest—take away the blood!' Her words varied sometimes, but those words never: 'Take away the dark forest—take away the blood!'"

"And did she never tell you what the dream meant—you, her nurse and comforter, with whom she must have been on such confidential terms?"

"No, dear child. She loved me and trusted me with all the strength of her innocent heart, I believe; but she never told me the cause of that awful dream. And I never dared to question