In some dim, unconscious fashion he groped for his watch, found it, and looked at the time. A quarter-past one. Only an hour had passed--an hour--and he felt as if centuries had swept over his head in the vivid horrors of that awful dream. "But it was only a dream," he cried aloud, drawing in deep panting breaths of the pine-scented air. "Oh! thank God. Thank God, it was only a dream!" And he sank on his knees and sobbed like a child in the star-lit solitude of the night. CHAPTER TWELVE. EFFECTS. The next day, when Colonel Estcourt sent to know if the Princess Zairoff would receive him, he was informed she was ill, and could see no one. Feeling strangely disinclined for mere ordinary society, he ordered his horse to be brought round and spent the greater portion of the day in long, fierce gallops over the miles of stretching sand that framed in the bay. The sky was chill and grey; a cold wind blew from the sea and dashed the salt foam in his face as the waves swept stormily in. But the dull sky and the stormy sea suited his mood, and seemed to string up the relaxed tension of his nerves. "Nature is man's best physician after all," he said to himself, reining in his beautiful Arab at last, and baring his brow to the fresh breeze. "Even as she is his best friend. Only we don't believe it. We live in the world and follow the ways of the world, until our faculties are blunted, our natures demoralised, our tastes vitiated, our energies enfeebled. How many lands I have travelled over, how many cities I have seen, and yet I verily believe that the wild Sioux in his prairies, and the wandering Bedouin of the desert, have more of real manhood than we. Yes; and get more real enjoyment out of life." It was quite dusk before he reached the hotel. The country was all new and strange to him, and he had missed his way more than once. But though he was tired, and stiff, and hungry, he felt that his mental energies were braced, his mind at ease, and the disturbing and torturing memories of the previous night no longer tormented him. At dinner he sat next to Mrs Ray Jefferson, who was radiant and voluble as ever. She had a great deal to say about the Princess, who, it appeared, had again spent the morning in the Baths. "She looked ill," said the little American. "Awfully white and languid. I asked her if she had seen a ghost. There was something scared and strange about her. I surmise it's nerves. It was odd, too," and she lowered her voice as if taking the Colonel into a special confidence. "But she went off to sleep in the hot room. Nothing could waken her. I got rather frightened." His face looked disturbed. "To sleep?" he said. "That is rather unusual, is it not?"