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382 to meet me, and I seemed to know that the picture of the wedding had been a hideous dream, and that now I was awake, and the familiar trysting-place looks so natural and familiar, that all my misery fell from me like a veil, and the blood leaped in my veins for joy. And he came nearer and nearer with his dark glad face, and we were but a hand's-breadth apart, when between us there came a woman, fair as a rose, with a marriage ring upon her finger, and though we tried to grope round her, we could not find each other, for between us she stood smiling, always smiling—and in calling madly upon him I awoke."

"And that is what has made you so fearful?" he asks. "Nell, Nell! it is not like you to believe in such folly—you always were such a sensible little thing!" His cheerful, robust philosophy heartens me. Does he not know more about everything than I do? But, oh! he does not know the whole story. "I know Vasher was engaged to Miss Fleming once," he goes on, “but it is sheer folly to suppose that, loving you as he does, he can ever come under her influence again. Why, Nell, are you afraid he will flirt with her?"

"No," I say, thoughtfully, "I can't picture him doing that; but I always had a vague, intangible feeling that she would do him a mischief, and that dream confirmed and strengthened the belief. I could not say positively what it is I dread, but it is something bad."

"And are you really so silly, Nell, as to suppose for a moment that he will marry her?" says George, smiling.

"No," I say, slowly; "a woman can't make a man marry her—can she? It is not that; as I told you before, I do not know what it is I fear."

"Comfortably indefinite," he says, cheerfully; “but you have not told me why you think she is so ill-inclined towards Vasher."

"Because he would not fall in love with her again," I say