A curious greyish light shone from
them, and I could read the lettering on the grave nearest me, and it
was, “In evil memory of Julia Stone.” And as usual Jack got up, and
again I followed him through the hall and up the staircase with many
corners. On this occasion it was darker than usual, and when I passed
into the room in the tower I could only just see the furniture, the
position of which was already familiar to me. Also there was a dreadful
odour of decay in the room, and I woke screaming. The dream, with such variations and developments as I have mentioned,
went on at intervals for fifteen years. Sometimes I would dream it two
or three nights in succession; once, as I have said, there was an
intermission of six months, but taking a reasonable average, I should
say that I dreamed it quite as often as once in a month. It had, as is
plain, something of nightmare about it, since it always ended in the
same appalling terror, which so far from getting less, seemed to me to
gather fresh fear every time that I experienced it. There was, too, a
strange and dreadful consistency about it. The characters in it, as I
have mentioned, got regularly older, death and marriage visited this
silent family, and I never in the dream, after Mrs Stone had died, set
eyes on her again. But it was always her voice that told me that the
room in the tower was prepared for me, and whether we had tea out on the
lawn, or the scene was laid in one of the rooms overlooking it, I could
always see her gravestone standing just outside the iron gate. It was
the same, too, with the married daughter; usually she was not present,
but once or twice she returned again, in company with a man, whom I took
to be her husband. He, too, like the rest of them, was always silent. But, owing to the constant repetition of the dream, I had ceased to
attach, in my waking hours, any significance to it. I never met Jack
Stone again during all those years, nor did I ever see a house that
resembled this dark house of my dream. And then something happened. I had been in London in this year, up till the end of July, and during
the first week in August went down to stay with a friend in a house he
had taken for the summer months, in the Ashdown Forest district of
Sussex. I left London early, for John Clinton was to meet me at Forest
Row Station, and we were going to spend the day golfing, and go to his
house in the evening. He had his motor with him, and we set off, about
five of the afternoon, after a thoroughly delightful day, for the drive,
the distance being some ten miles. As it was still so early we did not
have tea at the club house, but waited till we should get home. As we
drove, the weather, which up till then had been, though hot, deliciously
fresh, seemed to me to alter in quality, and become very stagnant and
oppressive, and I felt that indefinable sense of ominous apprehension
that I am accustomed to before thunder. John, however, did not share my
views, attributing my loss of lightness to the fact that I had lost both
my matches. Events proved, however, that I was right, though I do not
think that the thunderstorm that broke that night was the sole cause of
my depression. Our way lay through deep high-banked lanes, and before we had gone very
far I fell asleep, and was only awakened by the stopping of the motor. And with a sudden thrill, partly of fear but chiefly of curiosity, I
found myself standing in the doorway of my house of dream. We went, I
half wondering whether or not I was dreaming still, through a low
oak-panelled hall, and out on to the lawn, where tea was laid in the
shadow of the house. It was set in flower beds, a red-brick wall, with a
gate in it, bounded one side, and out beyond that was a space of rough
grass with a walnut tree. The façade of the house was very long, and at
one end stood a three-storied tower, markedly older than the rest. Here for the moment all resemblance to the repeated dream ceased. There
was no silent and somehow terrible family, but a large assembly of
exceedingly cheerful persons, all of whom were known to me. And in spite
of the horror with which the dream itself had always filled me, I felt
nothing of it now that the scene of it was thus reproduced before me. But I felt the intensest curiosity as to what was going to happen. Tea pursued its cheerful course, and before long Mrs Clinton got up. And
at that moment I think I knew what she was going to say. She spoke to
me, and what she said was:

“Jack will show you your room: I have given you the room in the tower.”

At that, for half a second, the horror of the dream took hold of me
again. But it quickly passed, and again I felt nothing more than the
most intense curiosity. It was not very long before it was amply
satisfied. John turned to me. “Right up at the top of the house,” he said, “but I think you’ll be
comfortable. We’re absolutely full up. Would you like to go and see it
now? By Jove, I believe that you are right, and that we are going to
have a thunderstorm. How dark it has become.”

I got up and followed him. We passed through the hall, and up the
perfectly familiar staircase. Then he opened the door, and I went in. And at that moment sheer unreasoning terror again possessed me. I did
not know for certain what I feared: I simply feared. Then like a sudden
recollection, when one remembers a name which has long escaped the
memory, I knew what I feared. I feared Mrs Stone, whose grave with the
sinister inscription, “In evil memory,” I had so often seen in my dream,
just beyond the lawn which lay below my window. And then once more the
fear passed so completely that I wondered what there was to fear, and I
found myself, sober and quiet and sane, in the room in the tower, the
name of which I had so often heard in my dream, and the scene of which
was so familiar. I looked round it with a certain sense of proprietorship, and found that
nothing had been changed from the dreaming nights in which I knew it so
well. Just to the left of the door was the bed, lengthways along the
wall, with the head of it in the angle. In a line with it was the
fireplace and a small bookcase; opposite the door the outer wall was
pierced by two lattice-paned windows, between which stood the
dressing-table, while ranged along the fourth wall was the washing-stand
and a big cupboard. My luggage had already been unpacked, for the
furniture of dressing and undressing lay orderly on the wash-stand and
toilet-table, while my dinner clothes were spread out on the coverlet of
the bed. And then, with a sudden start of unexplained dismay, I saw that
there were two rather conspicuous objects which I had not seen before in
my dreams: one a life-sized oil-painting of Mrs Stone, the other a
black-and-white sketch of Jack Stone, representing him as he had
appeared to me only a week before in the last of the series of these
repeated dreams, a rather secret and evil-looking man of about thirty.