He thought he waited quietly, squatting down on the mossy grass behind the paling.  Something in his hands seemed angry, for his fingers kept tearing up the short turf, and the juice of the severed stems was red like blood.  Then in the gathering darkness he heard the tip-tap of footsteps on the highway.  But it never occurred to him that this passenger would continue on the highroad; he was certainly going over the downs to Brighton.

The air was quite windless, but at this moment Morris heard the boughs of the oak-tree immediately above him stir and shake, and looking up he saw Mr. Taynton sitting in a fork of the tree.  That, too, was perfectly natural; Mr. Taynton was Mills’s partner; he was there as a sort of umpire.  He held a glass of port wine in one hand, and was sipping it in a leisurely manner, and when Morris looked up at him, he smiled at him, but put his finger to his lips, as if recommending silence.  And as the steps on the road outside sounded close he turned a meaning glance in the direction of the road.  From where he sat high in the tree, it was plain to Morris that he must command the sight of the road, and was, in his friendly manner, directing operations.

Suddenly the sound of the steps ceased, and Morris wondered for the moment whether Mills had stopped.  But looking up again, he saw Mr. Taynton’s head twisted round to the right, still looking over the palings.  But Morris found at once that the footsteps were noiseless, not because the walker had paused, but because they were inaudible on the grass.  He had left the road, as the dreamer felt certain he would, and was going over the downs to Brighton.  At that Morris got up, and still inside the park railings, followed in the direction he had gone.  Then for the first time in his dream, he felt angry, and the anger grew to rage, and the rage to quivering madness.  Next moment he had vaulted the fence, and sprang upon the walker from behind.  He dealt him blows with some hard instrument, belabouring his head, while with his left hand he throttled his throat so that he could not scream.  Only a few were necessary, for he knew that each blow went home, since all the savage youthful strength of shoulder and loose elbow directed them.  Then he withdrew his left hand from the throttled throat of the victim who had ceased to struggle, and like a log he fell back on to the grass, and Morris for the first time looked on his face.  It was not Mills at all; it was Mr. Taynton.

* * * * *

The terror plucked him from his sleep; for a moment he wrestled and struggled to raise his head from the pillow and loosen the clutch of the night-hag who had suddenly seized him, and with choking throat and streaming brow he sat up in bed.  Even then his dream was more real to him than the sight of his own familiar room, more real than the touch of sheet and blanket or the dew of anguish which his own hand wiped from his forehead and throat.  Yet, what was his dream?  Was it merely some subconscious stringing together of suggestions and desires and events vivified in sleep to a coherent story (all but that recognition of Mr. Taynton, which was nightmare pure and simple), or had it happened?