Mrs. Lodge got up to leave. ''Are you well,Rhoda?''
she asked. 'You look pale.'' ''Oh, I'm always pale,'' said Rhoda. ''But what about
you, Mrs. Lodge? Are you well?'' ''Yes, I am, but...there is something...It's nothing
very bad, but I don't understand it.'' She uncovered her left hand and arm. There were
marks on the arm, yellow-brown marks, like marks
made by fingers. Rhoda stared at them. ''How did it happen?'' she asked. ''I don't know,'' said Mrs. Lodge. ''One night, when
I was in bed, I had a dream...and then suddenly, my
arm hurt very badly. Perhaps I hit it on something in
the daytime, but I don't remember it.'' She laughed.
''Mr dear husband says it's nothing very much, and he's
right, of course.'' ''Yes...Which night was that?'' said Rhoda.
Mrs. Lodge thought for a moment. ''It was two weeks
ago today. It was two o'clock in the night--I remember,
because I heard the clock'' It was the same night, the same hour, as Rhoda
dream of the phantom. Rhoda remembered the terror
of it, and felt cold. ''How can this be?'' she thought, when Mrs. Lodge
left. ''Did I do that? Buy why? She is innocent and kind--
I don't want to hurt her. And how can a thing like that
happen? Only witches can do things like that...''
Extract from The Witbered Arm, by Thomas Hardy,retold by
Kennifer Bassett for the Oxford Bookworms Librery, Oxford University Press.