Ghost Stories: WITNESSED BY TWO by Mrs Molesworth

"But to-morrow--to-morrow you will keep for me. I may expect you at the

usual time?" said young Mrs. Medway to her old friend Major Graham, as

she shook hands with him.

"To-morrow? Certainly. I _have_ kept it for you, Anne. I always said I

should," he answered. There was a slight touch of reproach in his tone.

She lifted her eyes for half a second to his face as if she would have

said more. But after all it was only the words, "Good-bye, then, till

to-morrow," that were uttered, quietly and almost coldly, as Major

Graham left the room.

"I can't quite make Anne out sometimes," he said to himself. "She

is surely _very_ cold. And yet I know she has real affection for

me--_sisterly_ affection, I suppose. Ah, well! so much the better.

But still, just when a fellow's off for heaven knows how long,

and--and--altogether it does seem a little overstrained. She can't but

know what might have come to pass had we not been separated for so

long--or had I been richer; and I don't think she could have been

exactly in love with Medway, though by all accounts he was a very decent

fellow. She is so inconsistent too--she seemed really disappointed when

I said I couldn't stay to-day. But I'm a fool to think so much about

her. I am as poor as ever and she is rich. A fatal barrier! It's a good

thing that she _is_ cold, and that I have plenty of other matters to

think about."

And thus congratulating himself he dismissed, or believed that he

dismissed for the time being, all thought of Anne Medway from his mind.

It was true that he had plenty of other things to occupy it with, for

the day after to-morrow was to see his departure from England for an

indefinite period.

Mrs. Medway meantime sat sadly and silently in the library where Major

Graham had left her. Her sweet gray eyes were fixed on the fire burning

brightly and cheerfully in the waning afternoon light, but she saw

nothing about her. Her thoughts were busily travelling along a road

which had grown very familiar to them of late: she was recalling all

her past intercourse with Kenneth Graham since the time when, as boy

and girl, they had scarcely remembered that they were not "real" brother

and sister--all through the pleasant years of frequent meeting and

unconstrained companionship to the melancholy day when Kenneth was

ordered to India, and they bade each other a long farewell! That was ten

years ago now, and they had not met again till last spring, when Major

Graham returned to find his old playfellow a widow, young, rich, and

lovely, but lonely in a sense--save that she had two children--for she

was without near relations, and was not the type of woman to make quick

or numerous friendships.

The renewal of the old relations had been very pleasant--only too

pleasant, Anne had of late begun to think. For the news of Kenneth's

having decided to go abroad again had made her realise all he had become

to her, and the discovery brought with it sharp misgiving, and even

humiliation.

"He does not care for me--not as I do for him," she was saying to

herself as she sat by the fire. "There would have been no necessity for

his leaving England again had he done so. It cannot be because I am

rich and he poor, surely? He is not the sort of man to let such a mere

accident as that stand in the way if he really cared for me. No, it is

that he does not care for me except as a sort of sister. But still--he

said he had kept his _last_ evening for me--at least he cares for no one

else _more_, and that is something. Who knows--perhaps to-morrow--when

it comes to really saying good-bye----?" and a faint flush of renewed

hope rose to her cheeks and a brighter gleam to her eyes.

The door opened, and a gray-haired man-servant came in gently.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," he said apologetically; "I was not sure if

Major Graham had gone. Will he be here to dinner, if you please?"

"Not to-night, Ambrose. I shall be quite alone. But Major Graham will

dine here to-morrow; he does not leave till Thursday morning."

"Very well, ma'am," said Ambrose, as he discreetly retired.

He had been many years in the Medway household. He had respected his

late master, but for his young mistress he had actual affection, and

being of a somewhat sentimental turn, he had constructed for her benefit

a very pretty little romance of which Major Graham was the hero. It had

been a real blow to poor Ambrose to learn that the gentleman in question

was on the eve of his departure without any sign of a satisfactory third

volume, and he was rather surprised to see that Mrs. Medway seemed this

evening in better spirits than for some time past.

"It's maybe understood between themselves," he reflected, as he made

his way back to his own quarters. "I'm sure I hope so, for he's a real

gentleman and she's as sweet a lady as ever stepped, which I should know

if any one should, having seen her patience with poor master as was

really called for through his long illness. She deserves a happy ending,

and I'm sure I hope she may have it, poor lady."

"To-morrow at the usual time," meaning five o'clock or thereabouts,

brought Kenneth for his last visit. Anne had been expecting him with an

anxiety she was almost ashamed to own to herself, yet her manner was so

calm and collected that no one could have guessed the tumult of hope

and fear, of wild grief at his leaving, of intense longing for any

word--were it but a word--to prove that all was not on _her_ side only.

"I could bear his being away--for years even, if he thought it must

be--if I could but look forward--if I had the _right_ to look forward to

his return," she said to herself.

But the evening passed on tranquilly, and to all appearance pleasantly,

without a word or look more than might have been between real brother

and sister. Kenneth talked kindly--tenderly even--of the past; repeated

more than once the pleasure it had been to him to find again his old

friend so little changed, so completely his old friend still. The boys

came in to say good-night, and "good-bye, alas! my lads," added their

tall friend with a sigh. "Don't forget me quite, Hal and Charlie, and

don't let your mother forget me either, eh?" To which the little fellows

replied solemnly, though hardly understanding why he patted their curly

heads with a lingering hand this evening, or why mamma looked grave at

his words.

And Anne bore it all without flinching, and smiled and talked a little

more than usual perhaps, though all the time her heart was bursting, and

Kenneth wondered more than ever if, after all, she _had_ "much heart or

feeling to speak of."

"You will be bringing back a wife with you perhaps," she said once.

"Shall you tell her about your sister Anne, Kenneth?"

Major Graham looked at her earnestly for half an instant before he

replied, but Anne's eyes were not turned towards him, and she did not

see the look. And his words almost belied it.

"Certainly I shall tell her of you," he said, "that is to say, if she

ever comes to exist. At present few things are less probable. Still I

am old enough now never to say, '_Fontaine, je ne boirai jamais de ton

eau._' But," he went on, "I may return to find _you_ married again,

Anne. You are still so young and you are rather lonely."

"No," said Anne with a sudden fierceness which he had never seen in her

before, "I shall _never_ marry again--_never_," and she looked him full

in the face with a strange sparkle in her eyes which almost frightened

him.

"I beg your pardon," he said meekly. And though the momentary

excitement faded as quickly as it had come, and Anne, murmuring some

half-intelligible excuse, was again her quiet self, this momentary

glimpse of a fierier nature beneath gave him food for reflection.

"Can Medway have not been what he seemed on the surface, after all?" he

thought to himself. "What can make her so vindictive against matrimony?"

But it was growing late, and Kenneth had still some last preparations to

make. He rose slowly and reluctantly from his chair.

"I must be going, I fear," he said.

Anne too had risen. They stood together on the hearthrug. A slight,

very slight shiver passed through her. Kenneth perceived it.

"You have caught cold, I fear," he said kindly; for the room was warm

and the fire was burning brightly.

"No, I don't think so," she said indifferently.

"You will write to me now and then?" he said next.

"Oh, certainly--not very often perhaps," she replied lightly, "but now

and then. Stay," and she turned away towards her writing-table, "tell me

exactly how to address you. Your name--is your surname enough?--there is

no other Graham in your regiment?"

"No," he said absently, "I suppose not. Yes, just my name and the

regiment and Allagherry, which will be our headquarters. You might, if

you were _very_ amiable--you might write to Galles--a letter overland

would wait for me there," for it was the days of "long sea" for all

troops to India.

Anne returned to her former position on the hearthrug--the moment at the

table had restored her courage. "We shall see," she said, smiling again.

Then Kenneth said once more, "I _must_ go;" but he lingered still a

moment.

"You must have caught cold, Anne, or else you are very tired. You are so

white," and from his height above her, though Anne herself was tall, he

laid his hand on her shoulder gently and as a brother might have done,

and looked down at her pale face half inquiringly. A flush of colour

rose for an instant to her cheeks. The temptation was strong upon her to

throw off that calmly caressing hand, but she resisted it, and looked

up bravely with a light almost of defiance in her eyes.

"I am perfectly well, I assure you. But perhaps I am a little tired. I

suppose it is getting late."

And Kenneth stifled a sigh of scarcely realised disappointment, and

quickly drew back his hand.

"Yes, it is late. I am very thoughtless. Good-bye then, Anne. God bless

you."

And before she had time to answer he was gone.

Ambrose met him in the hall, with well-meaning officiousness bringing

forward his coat and hat. His presence helped to dissipate an impulse

which seized Major Graham to rush upstairs again for one other word of

farewell. Had he done so what would he have found? Anne sobbing--sobbing

with the terrible intensity of a self-contained nature once the strain

is withdrawn--sobbing in the bitterness of her grief and the cruelty of

her mortification, with but one consolation.

"At least he does not despise me. I hid it well," she whispered to

herself.

And Kenneth Graham, as he drove away in his cab, repeated to himself,

"She is _so_ cold, this evening particularly. And yet, can it be that it

was to hide any other feeling? If I thought so--good God!" and he half

started up as if to call to the driver, but sat down again. "No, no, I

must not be a fool. I could not stand a repulse from _her_--I could

never see her again. Better not risk it. And then I am so poor!"

And in the bustle and hurry of his departure he tried to forget the

wild fancy which for a moment had disturbed him. He sailed the next

day.

But the few weeks which followed passed heavily for Anne. It was a dead

time of year--there was no special necessity for her exerting herself to

throw off the overwhelming depression, and strong and brave as she was,

she allowed herself, to some extent, to yield to it.

"If only he had not come back--if I had never seen him again!" she

repeated to herself incessantly. "I had in a sense forgotten him--the

thought of him never troubled me all the years of my marriage. I suppose

I had never before understood how I _could_ care. How I wish I had never

learnt it! How I _wish_ he had never come back!"

It was above all in the afternoons--the dull, early dark, autumn

afternoons--which for some weeks had been enlivened by the expectation,

sure two or three times a week to be fulfilled, of Major Graham's

"dropping in"--that the aching pain, the weary longing, grew so bad as

to be well-nigh intolerable.

"How shall I bear it?" said poor Anne to herself sometimes; "it is so

wrong, so unwomanly! So selfish, too, when I think of my children. How

much I have to be thankful for--why should I ruin my life by crying for

the one thing that is not for me? It is worse, far worse than if he had

died; had I known that he had loved me, I could have borne his death, it

seems to me."

She was sitting alone one afternoon about five weeks after Kenneth had

left, thinking sadly over and over the same thoughts, when a tap at the

door made her look up.

"Come in," she said, though the tap hardly sounded like that of her

maid, and no one else was likely to come to the door of her own room

where she happened to be. "Come in," and somewhat to her surprise the

door half opened and old Ambrose's voice replied--

"If you please, ma'am----" then stopped and hesitated.

"Come in," she repeated with a touch of impatience. "What is it,

Ambrose? Where is Seton?"

"If you please, ma'am, I couldn't find her--that is to say," Ambrose

went on nervously, "I didn't look for her. I thought, ma'am, I would

rather tell you myself. You mustn't be startled, ma'am," and Anne at

this looking up at the old man saw that he was pale and

startled-looking himself, "but it's--it's Major Graham."

"Major Graham?" repeated Anne, and to herself her voice sounded almost

like a scream. "What about him? Have you heard anything?"

"It's _him_, ma'am--him himself!" said Ambrose. "He's in the library.

I'm a little afraid, ma'am, there may be something wrong--he looked so

strange and he did not answer when I spoke to him. But he's in the

library, ma'am."

Anne did not wait to hear more. She rushed past Ambrose, across

the landing, and down the two flights of steps which led to the

library--a half-way house room, between the ground-floor and the

drawing-room--almost before his voice had stopped. At the door she

hesitated a moment, and in that moment all sorts of wild suppositions

flashed across her brain. What was it? What was she going to hear? Had

Kenneth turned back half-way out to India for _her_ sake? Had some

trouble befallen him, in which he had come to seek her sympathy? What

_could_ it be? and her heart beating so as almost to suffocate her, she

opened the door.

Yes--there he stood--on the hearthrug as she had last seen him in that

room. But he did not seem to hear her come in, for he made no movement

towards her; he did not even turn his head in her direction.

More and more startled and perturbed, Anne hastily went up to him.

"Kenneth," she cried, "what is it? What is the matter?"

She had held out her hand as she hurried towards him, but he did not

seem to see it. He stood there still, without moving--his face slightly

turned away, till she was close beside him.

"Kenneth," she repeated, this time with a thrill of something very like

anguish in her tone, "what is the matter? Are you angry with me?

_Kenneth_--speak."

Then at last he slowly turned his head and looked at her with a strange,

half-wistful anxiety in his eyes--he gazed at her as if his very soul

were in that gaze, and lifting his right hand, gently laid it on her

shoulder as he had done the evening he had bidden her farewell. She did

not shrink from his touch, but strange to say, she did not feel it,

and some indefinable instinct made her turn her eyes away from his and

glance at her shoulder. But even as she did so she saw that his hand

was no longer there, and with a thrill of fear she exclaimed again,

"_Speak_, Kenneth, _speak_ to me!"

The words fell on empty air. There was no Kenneth beside her. She was

standing on the hearthrug alone.

Then, for the first time, there came over her that awful chill of terror

so often described, yet so indescribable to all but the few who have

felt it for themselves. With a terrible though half-stifled cry, Anne

turned towards the door. It opened before she reached it, and she

half fell into old Ambrose's arms. Fortunately for her--for her reason,

perhaps--his vague misgiving had made him follow her, though of what he

was afraid he could scarcely have told.

"Oh, ma'am--oh, my poor lady!" he exclaimed, as he half led, half

carried her back to her own room, "what is it? Has he gone? But how

could he have gone? I was close by--I never saw him pass."

"He is not there--_he has not been there_," said poor Anne, trembling

and clinging to her old servant. "Oh, Ambrose, what you and I have seen

was no living Kenneth Graham--no living man at all. Ambrose--he came

thus to say good-bye to me. He is dead," and the tears burst forth as

she spoke, and Anne sobbed convulsively.

Ambrose looked at her in distress and consternation past words. Then at

last he found courage to speak.

"My poor lady," he repeated. "It must be so. I misdoubted me and I

did not know why. He did not ring, but I was passing by the door

and something--a sort of feeling that there was some one waiting

outside--made me open it. To my astonishment it was he," and Ambrose

himself could not repress a sort of tremor. "He did not speak, but

seemed to pass me and be up the stairs and in the library in an instant.

And then, not knowing what to do, I went to your room, ma'am. Forgive me

if I did wrong."

"No, no," said Anne, "you could not have done otherwise. Ring the bell,

Ambrose; tell Seton I have had bad news, and that you think it has upset

me. But wait at the door till she comes. I--I am afraid to be left

alone."

And Mrs. Medway looked so deadly pale and faint, that when Seton came

hurrying in answer to the sharply-rung bell, it needed no explanation

for her to see that Mrs. Medway was really ill. Seton was a practical,

matter-of-fact person, and the bustle of attending to her mistress,

trying to make her warm again--for Anne was shivering with cold--and

persuading her to take some restoratives, effectually drove any inquiry

as to the cause of the sudden seizure out of the maid's head. And by

the time Mrs. Medway was better, Seton had invented a satisfactory

explanation of it all, for herself.

"You need a change, ma'am. It's too dull for anybody staying in town at

this season; and it's beginning to tell on your nerves, ma'am," was the

maid's idea.

And some little time after the strange occurrence Mrs. Medway was

persuaded to leave town for the country.

But not till she had seen in the newspapers the fatal paragraph she knew

would sooner or later be there--the announcement of the death, on board

Her Majesty's troopship _Ariadne_ a few days before reaching the Cape,

of "Major R. R. Graham," of the 113th regiment.

She "had known it," she said to herself; yet when she saw it there,

staring her in the face, she realised that she had been living in a hope

which she had not allowed to herself that the apparition might in the

end prove capable of other explanation. She would gladly have taken

refuge in the thought that it was a dream, an optical delusion fed of

her fancy incessantly brooding on her friend and on his last visit--that

her brain was in some way disarranged or disturbed--anything, anything

would have been welcome to her. But against all such was opposed the

fact that it was not herself alone who had seen Kenneth Graham that

fatal afternoon.

And now, when the worst was certain, she recognised this still more

clearly as the strongest testimony to the apparition not having been the

product of her own imagination. And old Ambrose, her sole confidant, in

his simple way agreed with her.

"If I had not seen him too, ma'am, or if I alone had seen him," he said,

furtively wiping his eyes. "But the two of us. No, it could have but

the one meaning," and he looked sadly at the open newspaper. "There's

a slight discrimpancy, ma'am," he said as he pointed to the paragraph.

"Our Major Graham's name was '_K._ R.' not '_R._ R.'"

"It is only a misprint. I noticed that," said Anne wearily. "No,

Ambrose, there can be no mistake. But I do not want any one--not _any

one_--ever to hear the story. You will promise me that, Ambrose?" and

the old man repeated the promise he had already given.

There was another "discrimpancy" which had struck Anne more forcibly,

but which she refrained from mentioning to Ambrose.

"It can mean nothing; it is no use putting it into his head," she said

to herself. "Still, it is strange."

The facts were these. The newspaper gave the date of Major Graham's

death as the 25th November--the afternoon on which he had appeared to

Mrs. Medway and her servant was that of the 26th. This left no

possibility of calculating that the vision had occurred at or even

shortly after the moment of the death.

"It must be a mistake in the announcement," Anne decided. And then she

gave herself up to the acceptance of the fact. Kenneth was dead. Life

held no individual future for her any more--nothing to look forward to,

no hopes, however tremblingly admitted, that "some day" he might return,

and return to discover--to own, perhaps, to himself and to her that he

did love her, and that only mistaken pride, or her own coldness, or one

of the hundred "mistakes" or "perhapses" by which men, so much more than

women, allow to drift away from them the happiness they might grasp, had

misled and withheld him! No; all was over. Henceforth she must live in

her children alone--in the interests of others she must find her

happiness.

"And in one blessed thought," said the poor girl--for she was little

more--even at the first to herself; "that after all he _did_ love me,

that I may, without shame, say so in my heart, for I was his last

thought. It was--it must have been--to tell me so that he came that day.

My Kenneth--yes, he was mine after all."

Some little time passed. In the quiet country place whither, sorely

against Seton's desires, Mrs. Medway had betaken herself for "change,"

she heard no mention of Major Graham's death. One or two friends

casually alluded to it in their letters as "very sad," but that was all.

And Anne was glad of it.

"I must brace myself to hear it spoken of and discussed by the friends

who knew him well--who knew how well _I_ knew him"--she reflected. "But

I am glad to escape it for a while."

It was February already, more than three months since Kenneth Graham had

left England, when one morning--among letters forwarded from her London

address--came a thin foreign paper one with the traces of travel upon

it--of which the superscription made Anne start and then turn pale and

cold.

"I did not think of this," she said to herself. "He must have left it to

be forwarded to me. It is terrible--getting a letter after the hand that

wrote it has been long dead and cold."

With trembling fingers she opened it.

"My dear--may I say my dearest Anne," were the first words that her eyes

fell on. Her own filled with tears. Wiping them away before going on to

read more, she caught sight of the date. "On board H.M.'s troopship

_Ariadne_, 27th November."

Anne started. Stranger and stranger. _Two_ days later than the reported

date of his death--and the writing so strong and clear. No sign of

weakness or illness even! She read on with frantic eagerness; it was

not a very long letter, but when Anne had read the two or three somewhat

hurriedly written pages, her face had changed as if from careworn, pallid

middle age, back to fresh, sunny youth. She fell on her knees in fervent,

unspoken thanksgiving. She kissed the letter--the dear, beautiful letter,

as if it were a living thing!

"It is too much--too much," she said. "What have I done to deserve such

blessedness?"

This was what the letter told. The officer whose death had been

announced was not "our Major Graham," not Graham of the 113th at all,

but an officer belonging to another regiment who had come on board at

Madeira to return to India, believing his health to be quite restored.

"The doctors had in some way mistaken his case," wrote Kenneth, "for he

broke down again quite suddenly and died two days ago. He was a very

good fellow, and we have all been very cut up about it. He took a fancy

to me, and I have been up some nights with him, and I am rather done

up myself. I write this to post at the Cape, for a fear has struck me

that--his initials being so like mine--some report may reach you that it

is _I_, not he. Would you care very much, dear Anne? I dare to think you

would--but I cannot in a letter tell you why. I must wait till I see

you. I have had a somewhat strange experience, and it is possible, just

possible, that I may be able to tell you all about it, _vivâ voce_,

sooner than I had any idea of when I last saw you. In the meantime,

good-bye and God bless you, my dear child."

Then followed a postscript--of some days' later date, written in great

perturbation of spirit at finding that the letter had, by mistake, not

been posted at the Cape. "After all my anxiety that you should see it

as soon as or before the newspapers, it is really too bad. I cannot

understand how it happened. I suppose it was that I was so busy getting

poor Graham's papers and things together to send on shore, that I

overlooked it. It cannot now be posted till we get to Galles."

That was all. But was it not enough, and more than enough? The next few

weeks passed for Anne Medway like a happy dream. She was content now to

wait--years even--she had recovered faith in herself, faith in the

future.

The next Indian mail brought her no letter, somewhat to her surprise.

She wondered what had made Kenneth allude to his perhaps seeing her

again before long--she wondered almost more, what was the "strange

experience" to which he referred. Could it have had any connection

with her _most_ strange experience that November afternoon? And thus

"wondering" she was sitting alone--in her own house again by this

time--one evening towards the end of April, when a ring at the bell made

her look up from the book she was reading, half dreamily asking herself

what visitor could be coming so late. She heard steps and voices--a door

shutting--then Ambrose opened that of the drawing-room where she was

sitting and came up to her, his wrinkled old face all flushed and

beaming.

"It was me that frightened you so that day, ma'am," he began. "It's

right it should be me again. But it's himself--his very own self this

time. You may believe me, indeed."

Anne started to her feet. She felt herself growing pale--she trembled so

that she could scarcely stand.

"Where is he?" she said. "You have not put him into the library--anywhere

but there?"

"He would have it so, ma'am. He said he would explain to you. Oh, go to

him, ma'am--you'll see it'll be all right."

Anne made her way to the library. But at the door a strange tremor

seized her. She could scarcely control herself to open it. Yes--there

again on the hearthrug stood the tall figure she had so often pictured

thus to herself. She trembled and all but fell, but his voice--his own

hearty, living voice--speaking to her in accents tenderer and deeper

than ever heretofore--reassured her, and dispersed at once the fear that

had hovered about her.

"Anne, my dear Anne. It is I myself. Don't look so frightened;" and in a

moment he had led her forward, and stood with his hand on her shoulder,

looking with his kind, earnest eyes into hers.

"Yes," he said dreamily, "it was just thus. Oh, how often I have thought

of this moment! Anne, if I am mistaken forgive my presumption, but I can't

think I am. Anne, my darling, you _do_ love me?"

There was no need of words. Anne hid her face on his shoulder for one

happy moment. Then amidst the tears that _would_ come she told him

all--all she had suffered and hoped and feared--her love and her agony

of humiliation when she thought it was not returned--her terrible grief

when she thought him dead; and yet the consolation of believing herself

to have been his last thought in life.

"So you shall be--my first and my last," he answered. "My Anne--my very

own."

And then she told him more of the strange story we know. He listened

with intense eagerness, but without testifying much surprise, far less

incredulity.

"I anticipated something of the kind," he said, after a moment or two of

silence. "It is very strange. Listen, Anne: at the time, the exact time,

so far as I can roughly calculate, at which you thought you saw me, I

was _dreaming_ of you. It was between four and five o'clock in the

afternoon, was it not?"

Anne bowed her head in assent.

"That would have made it about six o'clock where we then were," he went

on consideringly. "Yes; it was about seven when I awoke. I had lain down

that afternoon with a frightful headache. Poor Graham had died shortly

before midnight the night before, and I had not been able to sleep,

though I was very tired. I daresay I was not altogether in what the

doctors call a normal condition, from the physical fatigue and the effect

generally of having watched him die. I was feeling less _earthly_, if you

can understand, than one usually does. It is--to me at least--_impossible_

to watch a deathbed without wondering about it all--about what comes

after--intensely. And Graham was so good, so patient and resigned and

trustful, though it was awfully hard for him to die. He had every reason

to wish to live. Well, Anne, when I fell asleep that afternoon I at

once began dreaming about you. I had been thinking about you a great

deal, constantly almost, ever since we set sail. For, just before

starting, I had got a hint that this appointment--I have not told you

about it yet, but that will keep; I have accepted it, as you see by my

being here--I got a hint that it would probably be offered me, and that

if I didn't mind paying my passage back almost as soon as I got out, I

had better make up my mind to accept it. I felt that it hung upon _you_,

and yet I did not see how to find out what you would say without--without

risking what I _had_--your sisterly friendship. It came into my head

just as I was falling asleep that I would write to you from the Cape,

and tell you of Graham's death to avoid any mistaken report, and that

I might in my letter somehow feel my way a little. This was all in my

mind, and as I fell asleep it got confused so that I did not know

afterwards clearly where to separate it from my dream."