Peggy lay in her little white bed, and heard voices speaking in her ear, and saw strange shapes flit to and fro. Quite suddenly, as it appeared, a face would be bending over her own, and as she watched it with languid curiosity, wondering what manner of thing it could be, it would melt away and vanish in the distance. At other times again it would grow larger and larger, until it assumed gigantic proportions, and she cried out in fear of the huge, saucer-like eyes. There was a weary puzzle in her brain, an effort to understand, but everything seemed mixed up and incomprehensible. She would look round the room and see the sunshine peeping in through the chinks of the blinds, and when she closed her eyes for a moment--just a single fleeting moment--lo! the gas was lit, and someone was nodding in a chair by her side. And it was by no means always the same room. She was tired, and wanted badly to rest, yet she was always rushing about here, there, and everywhere, striving vainly to dress herself in clothes which fell off as soon as they were fastened, hurrying to catch a train to reach a certain destination; but in each instance the end was the same--she was falling, falling, falling--always falling--from the crag of an Alpine precipice, from the pinnacle of a tower, from the top of a flight of stairs. The slip and the terror pursued her wherever she went; she would shriek aloud, and feel soft hands pressed on her cheeks, soft voices murmuring in her ear. One vision stood out plainly from those nightmare dreams--the vision of a face which suddenly appeared in the midst of the big grey cloud which enveloped her on every side--a beautiful face which was strangely like, and yet unlike, something she had seen long, long ago in a world which she had well-nigh forgotten. It was pale and thin, and the golden hair fell in a short curly crop on the blue garment which was swathed over the shoulders. It was like one of the heads of celestial choir-boys which she had seen on Christmas cards and in books of engravings, yet something about the eyes and mouth seemed familiar. She stared at it curiously, and then suddenly a strange, weak little voice faltered out a well-known name. "Rosalind!" it cried, and a quick exclamation of joy sounded from the side of the bed. Who had spoken? The first voice had been strangely like her own, but at an immeasurable distance. She shut her eyes to think about it, and the fair-haired vision disappeared, and was seen no more.