But I would not let her go. I held her to me with all the strength that was in me. ‘I had it, but it’s gone again. An awful darkness came with it,’ I whispered in the little ear that was so close against my mouth. ‘I’ve been dreaming,’ I told her, as memory dipped away, ‘dreaming of you and me--together somewhere--in old gardens, or forests--where the sun was----’ But she would not let me finish. I think, in any case, I could not have said more, for thought evaded me, and any language of coherent description was in the same instant beyond my power. Exhaustion came upon me, that vile, compelling nausea with it. ‘The sun here is too strong for you, dear love,’ I heard her saying, ‘and you must rest more. We have been doing too much these last few days. You must have more repose.’ She rose to help me move indoors. ‘I have been unconscious then?’ I asked, in the feeble whisper that was all I could manage. ‘For a little while. You slept, while I watched over you.’ ‘But I was away from you! Oh, how could you let me sleep, when our time together is so short?’ She soothed me instantly in the way she knew we both loved so. I clung to her until she released herself again. ‘Not away from me,’ she smiled, ‘for I was with you in your dreaming.’ ‘Of course, of course you were’; but already I knew not exactly why I said it, nor caught the deep meaning that struggled up into my words from such unfathomable distance. ‘Come,’ she added, with her sweet authority again, ‘we must go in now. Give me your arm, and I will send out for the cushions. Lean on me. I am going to put you back to bed.’ ‘But I shall sleep again,’ I said petulantly, ‘and we shall be separated.’ ‘We shall dream together,’ she replied, as she helped me slowly and painfully towards the old grey walls of the château. II Half an hour later I slept deeply, peacefully, upon my bed in the big stately chamber where the roses watched beside the latticed windows. And to say I dreamed again is not correct, for it can only be expressed by saying that I saw and knew. The figures round the bed were actual, and in life. Nothing could be more real than the whisper of the doctor’s voice--that solemn, grave-faced man who was so tall--as he said, sternly yet brokenly, to some one: ‘You must say good-bye; and you had better say it _now_.’ Nor could anything be more definite and sure, more charged with the actuality of living, than the figure of Marion, as she stooped over me to obey the terrible command. For I saw her face float down towards me like a star, and a shower of pale spring blossoms rained upon me with her hair. The perfume of old, old gardens rose about me as she slipped to her knees beside the bed and kissed my lips--so softly it was like the breath of wind from lake and orchard, and so lingeringly it was as though the blossoms lay upon my mouth and grew into flowers that she planted there. ‘Good-bye, my love; be brave. It is only separation.’