Evil Omens

'Oh, Philip, I've been asleep, and yet I think I was awake! And I
saw Charley Kinraid as plain as iver I see thee now, and he wasn't
drowned at all. I'm sure he's alive somewheere; he were so clear and
life-like. Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do?' She wrung her hands in feverish distress. Urged by passionate
feelings of various kinds, and also by his desire to quench the
agitation which was doing her harm, Philip spoke, hardly knowing
what he said.

'Kinraid's dead, I tell yo', Sylvie! And what kind of a woman are
yo' to go dreaming of another man i' this way, and taking on so
about him, when yo're a wedded wife, with a child as yo've borne to
another man?' In a moment he could have bitten out his tongue. She looked at him
with the mute reproach which some of us see (God help us!) in the
eyes of the dead, as they come before our sad memories in the
night-season; looked at him with such a solemn, searching look,
never saying a word of reply or defence. Then she lay down,
motionless and silent. He had been instantly stung with remorse for
his speech; the words were not beyond his lips when an agony had
entered his heart; but her steady, dilated eyes had kept him dumb
and motionless as if by a spell.

Now he rushed to the bed on which she lay, and half knelt, half
threw himself upon it, imploring her to forgive him; regardless for
the time of any evil consequences to her, it seemed as if he must
have her pardon--her relenting--at any price, even if they both died
in the act of reconciliation. But she lay speechless, and, as far as
she could be, motionless, the bed trembling under her with the
quivering she could not still.