“Not down yet!” repeated Jabez in surprise, for Mrs. Gum was generally down by seven.  “You’ve got that door open again, Rebecca.  How many more times am I to tell you I won’t have it?”

“It’s the smoke,” said Rebecca.  “This chimbley always smokes when it’s first lighted.”

“The chimney doesn’t smoke, and you know that you are telling a falsehood.  What do you want with it open?  You’ll have that wild man darting in upon you some morning.  How will you like that?”

“I’m not afeard of him,” was the answer, as Rebecca got up from her knees.  “He couldn’t eat me.”

“But you know how timid your mistress is,” returned the clerk, in a voice of extreme anger.  “How dare you, girl, be insolent?”

He shut the door as he spoke—­one that opened from the kitchen to the back garden—­and bolted it.  Washing his hands, and drying them with a round towel, he went upstairs, and found Mrs. Gum—­as he had now and then found her of late—­in a fit of prostration.  She was a little woman, with a light complexion, and insipid, unmeaning face—­some such a face as Willy’s had been—­and her hair, worn in neat bands under her cap, was the colour of tow.

“I couldn’t help it, Gum,” she began, as she stood before the glass, her trembling fingers trying to fasten her black alpaca gown—­for she had never left off mourning for their son.  “It’s past eight, I know; but I’ve had such an upset this morning as never was, and I couldn’t dress myself.  I’ve had a shocking dream.”

“Drat your dreams!” cried Mr. Gum, very much wanting his breakfast.

“Ah, Gum, don’t!  Those morning dreams, when they’re vivid as this was, are not sent for ridicule.  Pike was in it; and you know I can’t bear him to be in my dreams.  They are always bad when he is in them.”

“If you wanted your breakfast as much as I want mine, you’d let Pike alone,” retorted the clerk.

“I thought he was mixed up in some business with Lord Hartledon.  I don’t know what it was, but the dream was full of horror.  It seemed that Lord Hartledon was dead or dying; whether he’d been killed or not, I can’t say; but an awful dread was upon me of seeing him dead.  A voice called out, ‘Don’t let him come to Calne!’ and in the fright I awoke.  I can’t remember what part Pike played in the dream,” she continued, “only the impression remained that he was in it.”

“Perhaps he killed Lord Hartledon?” cried Gum, mockingly.

“No; not in the dream.  Pike did not seem to be mixed up in it for ill.  The ill was all on Lord Hartledon; but it was not Pike brought it upon him.  Who it was, I couldn’t see; but it was not Pike.”

Clerk Gum looked down at his wife in scornful pity.  He wondered sometimes, in his phlegmatic reasoning, why women were created such fools.

“Look here, Mrs. G. I thought those dreams of yours were pretty nearly dreamed out—­there have been enough of ’em.  How any woman, short of a born idiot, can stand there and confess herself so frightened by a dream as to be unable to get up and go about her duties, is beyond me.”