II
Half an hour later I slept deeply, peacefully, upon my bed in the big stately chamber where the roses watched beside the latticed windows.
And to say I dreamed again is not correct, for it can only be expressed by saying that I saw and knew. The figures round the bed were actual, and in life. Nothing could be more real than the whisper of the doctor’s voice—that solemn, grave-faced man who was so tall—as he said, sternly yet brokenly, to some one: ‘You must say good-bye; and you had better say it now.’ Nor could anything be more definite and sure, more charged with the actuality of living, than the figure of Marion, as she stooped over me to obey the terrible command. For I saw her face float down towards me like a star, and a shower of pale spring blossoms rained upon me with her hair. The perfume of old, old gardens rose about me as she slipped to her knees beside the bed and kissed my lips—so softly it was like the breath of wind from lake and orchard, and so lingeringly it was as though the blossoms lay upon my mouth and grew into flowers that she planted there.
‘Good-bye, my love; be brave. It is only separation.’
‘It is death,’ I tried to say, but could only feebly stir my lips against her own.
I drew her breath of flowers into my mouth ... and there came then the darkness which is final.
The voices grew louder. I heard a man struggling with an unfamiliar language. Turning restlessly, I opened my eyes—upon a little, stuffy room, with white walls whereon no pictures hung. It was very hot. A woman was standing beside the bed, and the bed was very short. I stretched, and my feet kicked against the boarding at the end.
‘Yes, he is awake,’ the woman said in French. ‘Will you come in? The doctor said you might see him when he woke. I think he’ll know you.’ She spoke in French. I just knew enough to understand.