In the adjoining room the dinner table was as usual laid for two, but one could see that more care than usual had been given to its arrangement, while the roses in the centre were the largest and finest of their kind.  In the low, wide grate a bright fire was burning, and Arthur placed a large easy chair before it, and then brought from the library a covered footstool, with a delicate covering of blue and gold.  No foot had ever yet profaned this stool with a touch, for it was one of Arthur’s specialties, bought at a great price in Algiers; but he brought it now for Gretchen and saw in fancy resting upon it the cold little feet his hands were to rub and warm and caress until life came back to them, and Gretchen’s blue eyes smiled upon him and Gretchen’s sweet voice said: 

‘Thank you, Arthur.  It is pleasant coming home.’

For the last two or three weeks, Arthur had been very quiet and taciturn, but on the morning of this day he had seemed restless and nervous, and his nervousness and excitability increased until a violent headache came on, and Charles, the servant, who attended him, reported to Mrs. Tracy that his midday meal had been untouched and that he really seemed quite ill.  Then Frank went to him, and sitting down beside him as he lay upon a couch in the room with Gretchen’s picture, said to him, not unkindly: 

‘Are you sick to-day?  What is the matter?’

For a few moments Arthur made no reply, but lay with his eyes closed as if he had not heard.  Then suddenly rousing himself, he burst out, vehemently: 

’Frank, you think me crazy, or you have thought so, and you have based that belief in part on the fact that I am always expecting Gretchen.  And so for a long time I have suppressed all mention of her, though I have never ceased to look for her arrival, since—­since—­well, I may as well tell you the truth.  I know now that she could not have been with me on the ship and in the train, although I thought she was.  I wrote her to join me in Liverpool, and fancied she did.  But my brain must have been a little mixed.  She did not come with me, but I wrote to her weeks ago, telling her to come at once, and giving her directions how to find the park if she should arrive at the station and no one there to meet her.  She has had more than time to get here, but I have said nothing about sending the carriage for her, as that seemed to annoy you.  But to-day, Frank, to-day’—­and Arthur’s voice grew softer and pleading, and trembled as he went on.  ’I dreamed of her last night, and to-day she seems so near to me that more than once I have put out my hand to touch her.  Frank, it is not insanity, this presentiment of mine that she is near me, that she is coming to me, or tidings of her; it is mind acting upon mind; her thoughts of me reaching forward and fastening upon my thoughts of her, making a mental bridge on which to see her coming to me.  And you will send for her.  You will let John go again.  Think if she should arrive in this terrible storm and no one there to meet her.  You will send this once, and if she is not there I will not trouble you again.’