In the woods, an unpleasant man named Peter finds his girlfriend, well-meaning governess Vicki, wandering about in a trance. He thinks she has been sleepwalking, and takes her home to the great house of Collinwood.
In her bedroom, Vicki tells Peter that she has never walked in her sleep before. He tells her that he had a dream which persuaded him that she has been right all along. He now believes that the two of them lived in the 1790s, that they were lovers then, and that they were both unjustly sentenced to die. He describes a dream he had that broke down his resistance to this idea. Vicki tells him that the events in the dream did not take place, and wonders if she has been wrong about him all along. Perhaps he just dreamed about the stories she has been telling him. It does not occur to either of them that the dream was one Peter might have had while awaiting execution, so that even if it did not match what he would have seen during his waking hours, it still might have been an experience he had in the eighteenth century.
My wife, Mrs Acilius, was very much impressed with Alexandra Moltke Isles’ performance as Vicki in this scene. Every time Roger Davis speaks, and certainly every time he shoves his face into hers for a kiss, we recoil from Peter and expect Vicki to do the same. Yet Mrs Isles conjures up a look in her eyes and a tone in her voice that makes us believe Vicki loves Peter. She has to do that every time they have a scene together, and she pulls it off again and again. Mrs Acilius marveled that Mrs Isles could do this as convincingly with Mr Davis as if she were playing opposite an appealing actor.
Dark Shadows Commentary 