I remember we went out at a door on the side near the stage. It led down a lighted corridor which was empty and rather cold. From this we went down a darker passage with one light burning at the end, and along the passage were low doors at frequent intervals. He stopped before one of these and opened it and went in, I following. The door closed behind us, and I found we were in a cell very similar to those I had visited earlier with Vestné. The same ghostly light flickered along the wall and shone beside the altar. The woman who had sung knelt beside it, her arms stretched across it, her face buried against the hard board. “Come away,” I whispered to him. “No. She’s too far gone to notice us much. We will stay awhile.” I noticed that on her shoulder a blue bruise had risen, and I wondered how she had come by it. After a while she got up and began walking very, very slowly about the cell, and every now and again she drew her hand across her brow as if trying to move something away. At last she noticed us standing there, but whether she ever realised that we were other than forms conjured by her imagination I cannot tell. She pressed both hands to her side and her breath came in thick gasps. “I’ve been asleep,” she whispered, “and I dreamt. Yes, it was all a dream. But it keeps coming, coming, and will not go.” She shuddered. “When shall I awake?” she cried piteously. “When shall I learn the truth? When will the day come? They say I can’t do it,” she went on, whispering again; “and they always say the same.” “Well, perhaps you can’t,” suggested Plucritus, softly. “You have never succeeded yet, as you know.” She looked across and moved towards him. “Don’t say that,” she still whispered with a half-choking sob. “You must try again,” he urged. “Sir, is it easy to try again?” “I don’t know,” he answered indifferently. “You seem to have a gift that way, therefore it must be.” “I don’t know either,” she murmured wearily. “Give it up,” he insinuated. “Seeing that you can’t do it, it is the only sensible course left.” “I _can_ do it, you fool!” she cried impetuously. “I can, I can—or rather I could.” And her voice dropped again, and from walking about she had come to a dead stand. “How did you come by that bruise?” I asked, longing to get away, and hoping at least to change the conversation. “I—someone struck at me as I came away,” she replied. “And yet I don’t know why—I did my best, and never meant to offend anyone. But it was all a dream—a horrible dream. Everything was upside down.” And then she left us, and stumbled back to the altar, and burst into such a horrible fit of sobbing as I had never heard before. “We’ll go now,” said Plucritus. When we were outside he laughed. “That is one of my favourite—patients,” he said. “And cruelty is your favourite medicine,” I sneered. “I have known the day when you yourself were cruel,” he broke in. “Never, except under extreme provocation—and in a just cause.”