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"Your father see calamity Was this a common experience?"

"Of late, yes He has toldthe same dreams--a dream in which some assassin struck him out of the darkness" "Did you at any of these tiht now lead you to believe this fancied repetition was the result of any mental malady?"

"No"

"Was his description of the dreams always the same?"

"No; never were they twice alike, save in the one particular of the unseen assassin"

"Hu with him?"

"He never recovered from it, and each dream only accentuated his assurance that the experience was prophetic When once I tried to dissuade him fro no one you will knohy I am now so sure--I cannot tell you now, it would only '--here he stopped short, and, turning abruptly to me, said with a fierceness entirely alien to his disposition: 'Hatred is foreign to ! Have I been a kind father to you, Gwen? If so, promise me '--and he seized me by the wrist--' promise me if I'm murdered--I may as well say when I's ht that he --as your dearest friend on earth! You will deny hi You will learn later that I have taken care to reward him My child, you will owe this man a debt you can never repay, for he will have enabled your father's soul to find repose I dreaht that I caer ask you to be his wife You refused, and at your ingratitudeSwear to !' I promised him, and he seemed much reassured 'I am satisfied,' he said, 'and now can die in peace, for you are an anomaly, Gwen,--a woman who fully knows the nature of a covenant,' and he put his arm about me, and drew me to him His fierceness had subsided as quickly as it had appeared, and he was now all tenderness"

Maitland, who appeared soitated by her recital, said to her: "After the exaction of such a promise you have, of course, no doubt that your father was the victim of a mental malady--at least, at such times as those of which you speak?"