was bleaker than ever.  Little did the darkness, or the cold, or the doubt about the way home matter to me.  My mind was away from all these things.  My mind was fixed on the vision in the bedroom.  What had I seen trying to murder me?  The creature of a dream?  Or that other creature from the world beyond the grave, whom men call ghost?  I could make nothing of it as I walked along in the night; I had made nothing by it by midday—­when I stood at last, after many times missing my road, on the doorstep of home.

VI

My mother came out alone to welcome me back.  There were no secrets between us two.  I told her all that had happened, just as I have told it to you.  She kept silence till I had done.  And then she put a question to me.

“What time was it, Francis, when you saw the Woman in your Dream?”

I had looked at the clock when I left the inn, and I had noticed that the hands pointed to twenty minutes past two.  Allowing for the time consumed in speaking to the landlord, and in getting on my clothes, I answered that I must have first seen the Woman at two o’clock in the morning.  In other words, I had not only seen her on my birthday, but at the hour of my birth.

My mother still kept silence.  Lost in her own thoughts, she took me by the hand, and led me into the parlor.  Her writing-desk was on the table by the fireplace.  She opened it, and signed to me to take a chair by her side.

“My son! your memory is a bad one, and mine is fast failing me.  Tell me again what the Woman looked like.  I want her to be as well known to both of us, years hence, as she is now.”

I obeyed; wondering what strange fancy might be working in her mind.  I spoke; and she wrote the words as they fell from my lips: 

“Light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid.  Flaxen hair, with a golden-yellow streak in it.  White arms, with a down upon them.  Little, lady’s hands, with a rosy-red look about the finger nails.”

“Did you notice how she was dressed, Francis?”

“No, mother.”

“Did you notice the knife?”

“Yes.  A large clasp knife, with a buckhorn handle, as good as new.”

My mother added the description of the knife.  Also the year, month, day of the week, and hour of the day when the Dream-Woman appeared to me at the inn.  That done, she locked up the paper in her desk.

“Not a word, Francis, to your aunt.  Not a word to any living soul.  Keep your Dream a secret between you and me.”

The weeks passed, and the months passed.  My mother never returned to the subject again.  As for me, time, which wears out all things, wore out my remembrance of the Dream.  Little by little, the image of the Woman grew dimmer and dimmer.  Little by little, she faded out of my mind.

VII

The story of the warning is now told.  Judge for yourself if it was a true warning or a false, when you hear what happened to me on my next birthday.