(What a pity the Great Mrs. “Justice” Spywell could not hear these terrible and unmaidenly sentiments! An adventuress of the “fishing-fleet” in very truth!) And with reproving smile the gentle spinster would reply:— “My _dear!_ Suppose anyone overheard you, what _would_ they think?” Whereunto the naughty girl would answer:— “The truth, Auntie—that I’m going to pursue some poor young man to his doom. If Dam were a leper in the gutter, begging his bread, I would marry him in spite of himself—or share the gutter and bread in—er—guilty splendour. If he were a criminal in jail I would sit on the doorstep till he came out, and do the same dreadful thing. I’m just going to marry Dam at the first possible moment—like the Wild West ‘shoot on sight’ idea. I’m going to seize him and marry him and take care of him for the rest of his life. If he never had another grief, ache, or pain in the whole of his life, he must have had more than ten times his share already. Anyhow whether he’ll marry me or whether he won’t—in his stupid quixotic ideas of his ‘fitness’ to do so—I’m never going to part from him again.” And Auntie Yvette would endeavour to be less shocked than a right-minded spinster aunt should be at such wild un-Early-Victorian sentiments. Come, this was a better sort of dream! This was better than dreaming of prison-cells, lunatic asylums, tortures by the Snake, lying smashed on rocks, being eaten alive by vultures, wandering for aeons in red- hot waterless deserts, and other horrors. However illusory and tantalizing, this was at least a glorious dream, a delirium to welcome, a wondrous change indeed—to seem to be holding the hand of Lucille while she gazed into his eyes and, from time to time, pressed her lips to his forehead. A good job most of the bandages were gone or she could hardly have done that, even in a dream. And how wondrously _real!_ Her hand felt quite solid, there were tears trickling down her cheeks, tears that sometimes dropped on to his own hand with an incredible effect of actuality. It was even more vivid than his Sword-dream which was always so extraordinarily realistic and clear. And there, yes, by Jove, was dear old Auntie Yvette, smiling and weeping simultaneously. Such a dream was the next best thing to reality—save that it brought home to one too vividly what one had lost. Pain of that kind was nevertheless a magnificent change from the other ghastly nightmares, of the wholly maleficent kind. This was a kindly, helpful pain….It is so rare to see the faces of our best-beloved in dreams … Sleep was going to be something other than a procession of hideous nightmares then … “I believe he knew me, Auntie,” whispered Lucille. “Oh, when will Colonel Decies come back. I want him to be here when he opens his eyes again. He would know at a glance whether he were in his right mind and knew me.” “I am certain he did, dear,” replied Auntie Yvette. “I am positive he smiled at you, and I believe he knew me too.”