Wilkie Collins may have had issues with women, and it becomes apparent in this short story by Collins when Isaac Scatchard, not the brightest bulb on the tree, an itinerant ostler, wakes on the night of his birthday to see the apparition of a woman trying to stab him with a clasp knife. Seven years later he marries Rebecca Murdoch, against the wishes of his mother who recognizes her from Isaac's description as the dream woman. Rebecca takes to drink and fulfills the prophecy by attacking him on his birthday. She disappears and Isaac can never again sleep at night for fear she will return to kill him.