Tarlton Law Library
Jamail Center for Legal Research

                      "Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow."
                                                  COLERIDGE.

then, have been known to you. The mere fact of seeing a strange gentleman 
in the hall would have been insufficient to cause you astonishment, Mr. 
Harwell."
     He uneasily fingered the back of the chair before which he stood,
but made no reply.
     "Sit down," I again urged, this time with a touch of command in my
voice. "This is a serious matter, and I intend to deal with it
as it deserves. You once said that if you knew anything which might
serve to exonerate Eleanore Leavenworth from the suspicion under which
she stands, you would be ready to impart it."
     "Pardon me. I said that if I had ever known anything calculated to
release her from her unhappy position, I would have spoken," he coldly
corrected.
     "Do not quibble. You know, and I know, that you are keeping
something back; and I ask you, in her behalf, and in the cause of
justice, to tell me what it is."
     "You are mistaken," was his dogged reply. "I have reasons,
perhaps, for certain conclusions I may have drawn; but my conscience
will not allow me in cold blood to give utterance to suspicions which
may not only damage the reputation of an honest man, but place me in
the unpleasant position of an accuser without substantial foundation
for my accusations."
     "You occupy that position already," I retorted, with equal
coldness. "Nothing can make me forget that in my presence you have
denounced Henry Clavering as the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth. You 
had better explain yourself, Mr. Harwell."
     He gave me a short look, but moved around and took the chair. "You
have me at a disadvantage," he said, in a lighter tone. "If you choose
to profit by your position, and press me to disclose the little I know, I

can only regret the necessity under which I lie, and speak."
     "Then you are deterred by conscientious scruples alone?"
     "Yes, and by the meagreness of the facts at my command."
     "I will judge of the facts when I have heard them."
     He raised his eyes to mine, and I was astonished to observe a
strange eagerness in their depths; evidently his convictions were
stronger than his scruples. "Mr. Raymond," he began, "you are a
lawyer, and undoubtedly a practical man; but you may know what it is to
scent danger before you see it, to feel influences working in the air
over and about you, and yet be in ignorance of what it is that affects
you so powerfully, till chance reveals that an enemy has been at your
side, or a friend passed your window, or the shadow of death crossed
your book as you read, or mingled with your breath as you slept?"
     I shook my head, fascinated by the intensity of his gaze into some
sort of response.
     "Then you cannot understand me, or what I have suffered these last
three weeks." And he drew back with an icy reserve that seemed to
promise but little to my now thoroughly awakened curiosity.
     "I beg your pardon," I hastened to say; "but the fact of my never
having experienced such sensations does not hinder me from
comprehending the emotions of others more affected by spiritual
influences than myself."
     He drew himself slowly forward. "Then you will not ridicule me if I
say that upon the eve of Mr. Leavenworth's murder I experienced in a
dream all that afterwards occurred; saw him murdered, saw" — and he

clasped his hands before him, in an attitude inexpressibly convincing,
while his voice sank to a horrified whisper, "saw the face of his
murderer!"
     I started, looked at him in amazement, a thrill as at a ghostly
presence running through me.
     "And was that—" I began.
     "My reason for denouncing the man I beheld before me in the hall of
Miss Leavenworth's house last night? It was." And, taking out his
handkerchief, he wiped his forehead, on which the perspiration was
standing in large drops.
     "You would then intimate that the face you saw in your dream and
the face you saw in the hall last night were the same?"
     He gravely nodded his head.
     I drew my chair nearer to his. "Tell me your dream," said I.
     "It was the night before Mr. Leavenworth's murder. I had gone to
bed feeling especially contented with myself and the world at large;
for, though my life is anything but a happy one," and he heaved a short
sigh, "some pleasant words had been said to me that day, and I was
revelling in the happiness they conferred, when suddenly a chill struck
my heart, and the darkness which a moment before had appeared to me as
the abode of peace thrilled to the sound of a supernatural cry, and I
heard my name, 'Trueman, Trueman, True-man,' repeated three times in a
voice I did not recognize, and starting from my pillow beheld at my
bedside a woman. Her face was strange to me," he solemnly proceeded,
"but I can give you each and every detail of it, as, bending above me,
she stared into my eyes with a growing terror that seemed to implore

help, though her lips were quiet, and only the memory of that cry
echoed in my ears."
     "Describe the face," I interposed.
     "It was a round, fair, lady's face. Very lovely in contour, but
devoid of coloring; not beautiful, but winning from its childlike look
of trust. The hair, banded upon the low, broad forehead, was brown;
the eyes, which were very far apart, gray; the mouth, which was its
most charming feature, delicate of make and very expressive. There was
a dimple in the chin, but none in the cheeks. It was a face to be
remembered."
     "Go on," said I.
     "Meeting the gaze of those imploring eyes, I started up. Instantly
the face and all vanished, and I became conscious, as we sometimes do
in dreams, of a certain movement in the hall below, and the next
instant the gliding figure of a man of imposing size entered the
library. I remember experiencing a certain thrill at this, half terror,
half curiosity, though I seemed to know, as if by intuition, what he
was going to do. Strange to say, I now seemed to change my personality,
and to be no longer a third party watching these proceedings, but Mr.
Leavenworth himself, sitting at his library table and feeling his doom
crawling upon him without capacity for speech or power of movement to
avert it. Though my back was towards the man, I could feel his stealthy
form traverse the passage, enter the room beyond, pass to that stand
where the pistol was, try the drawer, find it locked, turn the key,
procure the pistol, weigh it in an accustomed hand, and advance again.
I could feel each footstep he took as though his feet were in truth
upon my heart, and I remember staring at the table before me as if I
expected every moment to see it run with my own blood. 

I can see now how the letters I had been writing danced upon the paper 
before me, appearing to my eyes to take the phantom shapes of persons 
and things long ago forgotten; crowding my last moments with regrets and 
dead shames, wild longings, and unspeakable agonies, through all of which
that face, the face of my former dream, mingled, pale, sweet, and
searching, while closer and closer behind me crept that noiseless foot
till I could feel the glaring of the assassin's eyes across the narrow
threshold separating me from death and hear the click of his teeth as
he set his lips for the final act. Ah!" and the secretary's livid face
showed the touch of awful horror, "what words can describe such an
experience as that? In one moment, all the agonies of hell in the
heart and brain, the next a blank through which I seemed to see afar,
and as if suddenly removed from all this, a crouching figure looking at
its work with starting eyes and pallid back-drawn lips; and seeing,
recognize no face that I had ever known, but one so handsome, so
remarkable, so unique in its formation and character, that it would be
as easy for me to mistake the countenance of my father as the look and
figure of the man revealed to me in my dream."
     "And this face?" said I, in a voice I failed to recognize as my
own.
     "Was that of him whom we saw leave Mary Leavenworth's presence
last night and go down the hall to the front door."