I would not put stock in dreams, for it is unchristian to make too much of such things. Our guard comes down in the dark, and it is a time of temptation and illusion. Still, I will tell you of the dream I had that night.
I might have sworn I woke, were I a man given to swearing. And there, all aglow at the foot of my bed, stood Anthony Fowler. His face had the chill of Little Mac's, though a thousand times fairer it was, and he looked at me, with eyes that encompassed all the sorrows of the poor. It was the face of a saint, and beautiful, with its blond radiance of hair. Then I noticed the blood pouring from his chest. Oceans and seas of it, a deluge upon the floor.
...I will have nothing to do with apparitions, or omens, or spirits, or the like, for they are empty things, and heathen, and lead us where we should not go. But I wonder to this day if I did not see him there, in his murdered innocence, standing before me. Perhaps the dead need settling before they sleep. Now you will say, "That is silly," and I will agree with you. By daylight I will agree. But what if the poor departed must do up their accounts before the Good Lord takes them to his bosom? All sums will be credited, and all wages paid, see. It is a law of every counting house. And perhaps Anthony Fowler knew the value of a good clerk.