We slept at that place that night, and the stars came out clear, and the water on the sand sang like a harp played by the wind. I slept, but I dreamed. I thought that Lord Starling came to me, and that the woman went away. And then the dream shifted, and I stood in a strange, barren mist-world, and I was alone. I saw the awful loneliness of creation, and immensity stretched around me. I traveled through infinite spaces of void and blackness, and found no sound of voice or life, yet all the time, welling high within me, was a tide, the fullness of which I had never known in my waking hours. All the strength that I had hoarded, all the desire for love that I had pushed aside, all of the fierce commotions of unrest that mark us from the brute, stirred in me till I felt as if I were suffocating, and cried out for a helping hand. But I was alone, and gray wastes surrounded me, and my surge of feeling beat itself out against desolation. I woke with sweat on my forehead.
I woke to a black night. The stars looked cold, and the men beside me lay as if dead. I looked up and watched the roll of the planets. The mystery of infinity which lies naked at midnight in the wilderness drives some men mad. Heretofore I had been untouched by it except with delight. Now I crept cautiously to my feet and went softly to the woman.
I know that I stepped without sound, but as I stood for a moment looking down at the couch of boughs where she lay I heard a guarded whisper.
"Monsieur, monsieur."
I bent over her. Her eyes were not only open, but wakeful, and her small face looked white against the dark blanket.
"What is it, monsieur?" she whispered.
I knelt that I might answer softly. "I woke, and thought you were in danger. I came to look at you and be sure that all was well. You do not sleep, madame?"
She shook her head. "I slept, but I dreamed. And you, monsieur?"
"I, too, have dreamed."
I thought that she smiled at me, though her face, when I leaned to see it clearly, blurred into the dark.