‘The sun here is too strong for you, dear love,’ I heard her saying, ‘and you must rest more. We have been doing too much these last few days. You must have more repose.’ She rose to help me move indoors.
‘I have been unconscious then?’ I asked, in the feeble whisper that was all I could manage.
‘For a little while. You slept, while I watched over you.’
‘But I was away from you! Oh, how could you let me sleep, when our time together is so short?’
She soothed me instantly in the way she knew we both loved so. I clung to her until she released herself again.
‘Not away from me,’ she smiled, ‘for I was with you in your dreaming.’
‘Of course, of course you were’; but already I knew not exactly why I said it, nor caught the deep meaning that struggled up into my words from such unfathomable distance.
‘Come,’ she added, with her sweet authority again, ‘we must go in now. Give me your arm, and I will send out for the cushions. Lean on me. I am going to put you back to bed.’
‘But I shall sleep again,’ I said petulantly, ‘and we shall be separated.’
‘We shall dream together,’ she replied, as she helped me slowly and painfully towards the old grey walls of the château.