Dartmouth felt a certain languor, as of one who is dreaming,
and is half-conscious that he is dreaming, and therefore yields
unresistingly to the pranks of his sleeping brain. Was it Weir, or was
it the woman who had been a part of his vision last night? She wore a
long, shining yellow dress, and her arms and neck were bare. Surely it
was the other woman! She turned her head a little, and he saw her face
in profile; there was the same stamp of suffering, the same pallor.
Weir had never looked like that; before he had known her she had had,
sometimes, a little expression of sadness and abstraction which had
made her look very picturesque, but which had borne no relationship
to suffering or experience. And the scene! the room filled with dying
light, the glimpse of water beyond, the very attitude of the woman at
the casement--all were strangely and deeply familiar to him, although
not the details of the vision of last night. The only things that were
wanting were the Eastern hangings to cover the dark wainscotted old
walls, and the skins on the black, time-stained floor.
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