He slept long and dreamlessly, and then began to dream with extraordinary vividness. He dreamed that he had not gone to sleep at all, but still lay in his hammock, in the shade of the pine, while the garden outside was full of the white blaze of the moonlight and ebony clear-cut shadows. The thunder of the surf had quite died away, the tobacco-plants still gave out their odour, and the stars, a little quenched by the moon, had faded in the boughs of the pine. And then he perceived (but with no sense of strangeness) that there was something new in the garden, for, close to the door into the house, was standing a white marble statue. This brought his legs over the side of his hammock, and he got up to go and look at it, and then remembered, so he thought, all about it. It was the statue of Helena, which she had told him was a gift from her to him, and it did not seem at all unnatural that it should have been brought out and put in the garden. But, as he had not seen it yet, he walked now across to it, and found an admirable and lovely figure. It was clad in a long Greek chiton, low at the throat and reaching nearly to her feet, which were sandalled. One hand was advanced to him with a beckoning gesture; the other, with its exquisite arm bare to the shoulder, hung by her side. The statue was life-size, for, as it stood on its low marble plinth, the face was just on a level with his. Exquisite in its fidelity and its beauty was that small head on its slender neck, and it endorsed the message of her beckoning hand. The lips, uncurled in a half-smile, mysteriously invited him; the body, too, was a little inclined forward towards him; next moment, surely, she would step down from her pedestal, and, like Galatea, shake off the semblance of stone, and declare herself his. Standing there, entranced and strangely excited, Archie drank in the amazing loveliness of the figure. White and flawless, without speck or stain, the snow of the Parian quarries gleamed in the moonlight. And then he saw that, just where the neck flowed, with the strength and tenderness of a river, into the shoulders, there was a small dark spot, and, taking a step nearer, he put out his hand to flick it away. But it did not come away: it was as if some little excrescence had stuck to the marble, and, making a second attempt, he felt that it was soft, and that it grew a little longer. It moved, too; it wriggled like the head of a worm, and then, with a faint feeling of disgust, he saw that it was indeed the head of a worm protruding from the marble, just as a worm comes up through earth. Even as he looked, there came another such speck near the mouth; this also grew and wriggled, then came another on the arm which was put forward to welcome him.