In spite of her prohibition, I couldn’t help asking one virtual question more.  I gave a start of horror: 

“Not the wall at The Grange!” I cried.  “Oh, Aunt Emma, how wonderful!”

She gazed at me, astonished.

“Yes, the wall at The Grange,” she said simply.  “But I don’t know how you guessed it....  Oh, Una, don’t talk to me any more about these things, I implore you.  You can’t think how they grieve me.  They distress me unspeakably.”

Much as I longed to know, I couldn’t ask her again after that.  She was trembling like an aspen-leaf.  For some minutes we sat and looked at the fireplace in silence.

Then curiosity overcame me again.

“Only one question more, auntie,” I said.  “When I came to you first, you were at home here at Barton.  You didn’t come to Woodbury to fetch me after the murder.  You didn’t attend the inquest.  I’ve often wondered at that.  Why didn’t you bring me yourself?  Why didn’t you hurry to nurse me as soon as you heard they’d shot my father?”

Aunt Emma gazed at me again with a face like a sheet.

“Darling,” she said, quivering, “I was ill.  I was in bed.  I was obliged to stay away.  I’d hurt myself badly a little before....  Oh, Una, leave off!  If you go on like this, you’ll drive me mad.  Say no more, I implore of you.”

I couldn’t think what this meant; but as auntie wished it, I held my peace, all inwardly trembling with suppressed excitement.

That night, when I went up to bed, I lay awake long, thinking to myself of the Australian scene.  In the silence of the night it came back to me vividly.  Rain pattered on the roof, and helped me to remember it.  I could see the blue-gum trees waving their long ribbon-like leaves in the wind:  I could see the cottage, the verandah, my mother, our dog:  nay, even, I remembered now, with a burst of recollection, his name was Carlo.  The effort was more truly a recollection than before:  it was part of myself:  I felt aware it was really I myself, not another, who had seen all this, and lived and moved in it.

Slowly I fell asleep, and passed from thinking to dreaming.  My dream was but a prolongation of the thoughts I had been turning over in my waking mind.  I was still in Australia; still on the verandah of our wooden house; and my mamma was there, and papa beside her.  I knew it was papa; for I held his hand and played with him.  But he was so much altered, so grave and severe; though he smiled at me good-humouredly.  Mamma was sitting behind, with baby on her lap.  It seemed to me quite natural she should be there with baby.  The scene was so distinct—­very vivid and clear.  It persisted for many minutes, perhaps even hours.  It burnt itself into my brain.  At last, it woke me up by its very intensity.

As I woke, a great many thoughts crowded in upon me all at once.  This time I knew instantly it was no mere dream, but a true recollection.  Yet what a strange recollection! how unexpeted! how incomprehensible!  How much in it to settle! how much to investigate and hunt up and inquire about!