The time went slowly by. The rain fell, and it was cold. Elizabeth lay down in the great square bed, and presently she slept, lulled by the steady dropping of the rain. She slept, and in her sleep she dreamed that she was sinking fathoms deep in a stormy, angry sea. Far overhead, she could hear the clash of the waves, and the long, long sullen roar of the swelling storm. And she went down and down into a black darkness that was deeper than any night—down, till she lost the roar of the storm above, down until all sound was gone, and she was alone in a black silence that would never lift or break again. Her soul was cold and blind, and most unendurably alone. Then something touched her, something that was warm. There came upon her that strange sense of home-coming, which comes to us in dreams, when love comes back to us across the sundering years, and all the pains of life, the pains of death, vanish and are gone, and we are come home—home to the place where we would be. In her dream Elizabeth was come home. It was so long, so long, that she had wandered—so many years, so many lands—such weary feet and such a weary way. Now she was come home. She stirred and opened her eyes. The rain had ceased. The room was dark, but the moon shone, for a single shaft struck between the curtains and lay above the bed like a silver feather dropped from some great passing wing. Elizabeth was awake. She saw these things. She was come home. David’s arms were about her in the darkness. CHAPTER XX THE WOMAN OF THE DREAM Oh, was it in the dead of night, Or in the dark before the day, You came to me and kneeling, knew The thing that I would never say? There was no star, nor any moon, There was no light from pole to pole, And yet you saw the secret thing, That I had hid within my soul. You saw the secret and the shrine, You bowed your head and went your way— Oh, was it in the dead of night, Or in the dark that brings the day? For the next fortnight Elizabeth lived in a dream from which she scarcely woke by day. The dream life—the dream love—the dream itself—these became her life. In the moments that came nearest the waking she trembled, because if the dream was her life, the waking would be death. But for the rest of the time she walked in a trance. Earth budded, and the birds built nests. The green of woodland places went down under a flood of bluebells. The children made cowslip balls. All day long the sun shone out of a blue sky, and at night David came to her. Always he came at night, and went away in the dawn. And he remembered nothing. Once she put her face to his in the darkness, and said: “Oh, David, won’t you remember—won’t you ever remember? Am I only the Woman of the Dream? When will you remember?” Then David was troubled in his dream, and stirred and went from her an hour before the time of his going.