“No,” she said, “this was all my dream. Michael, O Michael, you are like that lover of the darkness.”
And just then Monk came back among us roaring for food.
I gave him the bag I had carried and he helped himself.
“I do not feel the need of it,” said Mary.
“I do not feel the need of it,” said I.
When he had told us his tales and the darkness was come we went to rest among the heather.
The wild stars were flowing over the sky, for it was the time of the year when they do fall. Three of them dropped together into the plain near the foot of the mountain, but I lay with the bride of dreams in my arms and if the lake and the mountain itself had been heaped with immortal stars I would not have stirred. Yet in the morning when I awoke I was alone. There was a new sprig of the rowan in my hand; the grand sun was warm on the rocks and the heather. I stood up and could hear a few birds in the thickets below, little showers of faint music. Mary and Monk were conversing on a ridge under the bank of the lake. I went to them, and Monk touched my arm again as if to give me a warning but I had no eyes for him, Mary was speaking and pointing.
“Do you see, Michael, that green place at the foot of the mountain?”
“I do, I see a fine green ring.”
“Do you see what is in it?”