When I sought to move me on the pillows the dream seemed more than ever dream-sure. The pain of a sword wound was grinding at my shoulder, and I was bandaged stiff as I had been that other day. So I said, as you have said in like awakenings, "Dear God,'twas but a dream!" and saying it, would turn my head to see if Mistress Margery were sitting where I last remembered her. She was there, in very deed and truth, deep in the hollow of the great chair of Indian wickerwork; and as before, the soft graying of the evening sky was mirrored in her eyes. I sighed, and there was a catching of the breath at the bottom of it. Truly, the wondrous dream had had its agonies, but there were also beatitudes to tip the scale the other way. For I had dreamed this sweet-faced watcher was my wife--in name, at least. 'Twas while I looked, minding not the eye-ache the effort cost, that she rose and came softly to the bedside. She said no word, but, as once in the dream-time, she laid a cool palm on my forehead. Weak as I was--and surely King David was not weaker when he wrote his bones were gone to water--the old love-madness of that other day came to thrill me at her touch, and I made as if I would take her hand and press it to my lips. "Nay, sir," she said, with a swift return to sick-room discipline, "you must not stir; you have been sorely hurt." "Aye," said I; "I do remember; 'twas in a duel with one Francis Falconnet. He said he would make you his--" Now the soft palm was laid on my lips, and I kissed it till she snatched it away. "_Ma foi!_" she cried; "I think you are in a hopeful way to recover now, Captain Ireton. I do protest I shall go and send old Anthony to sit with you." "Anthony?" said I; "he was in the dream, too, putting up the chain on the hall door." "Ah, _mon Dieu_!" she said softly, as if to herself, "he is wandering yet." At which, as if to try to help me: "'Twas no dream; you did see him putting on the chain." "Did I? I made sure I dreamed it. But tell me another thing; was it not yesterday that I met Sir Francis Falconnet under the oaks in the wood field and got this pair of redhot pincers in my shoulder?" She turned away, and if I ever saw a tear there was one trembling in her eyelashes. "'Twas three full weeks ago," she said. "And it was not in the wood field--'twas in the wine cellar. Never tell me you do not remember; I--I could never--ah, Mother of Sorrows! that would be worse than all." Here was a curious coil, but I could break one strand of it, at least, and so I did. "I remember well enough," I hastened to say. "But being here, and seeing you there in the great chair, carried me back to that other time, making all the interval stand as a dream. Have I been ailing?" "You have been terribly near to death, Monsieur John; so near that Doctor Carew has twice given you over."