When I awakened to more commonplace things I knew that it was very late indeed. I wondered what had possessed me, and what story I should tell my father standing there in the hall, holding up a candle, looking at me before he turned round to fasten the chain. I raced home to the fulfilment of this vision, but it was already past midnight, and my father would not listen to my excuses. He was very angry indeed, but his anger could not come between me and my happiness. I listened to it in a kind of dream, and as soon as a pause came, slipped away from it and on upstairs. In the dark, as I undressed, the delicate scent of heather still clinging to my clothes filled the small bedroom, and seemed to bring the whole day back to me from the beginning. Comfortably between the cool sheets I went over every incident of it, while the scent of heather still floated about me; and now I had acquired an extraordinary bravery; I gave utterance to every thought arising in my mind; the embrace which had been so impossible was perfectly easy. One by one exquisite pictures drifted in through the windows of my closed eyes; one by one they opened out before me, like flowers, full of delicious sweetness, and in the midst of them I fell asleep. But my sleep was only a completer realization of my waking thoughts. I was again with Katherine, and again we were alone on the mountain-side. We were coming home and I was a little behind her, when she stooped to gather a handful of heather. But instead of fastening it into her dress she turned and flung it at me, and then ran on down the hill. I followed quickly, and all at once she stopped running and we stood there, hot and panting and laughing. Then she impulsively lifted her face, and I kissed her. I held her close to me and kissed her again and again.... And the scent of heather floated about my bed, the heather of reality mingling with the heather of my dream. CHAPTER XI