“Come away,” I whispered to him.
“No. She’s too far gone to notice us much. We will stay awhile.”
I noticed that on her shoulder a blue bruise had risen, and I wondered how she had come by it. After a while she got up and began walking very, very slowly about the cell, and every now and again she drew her hand across her brow as if trying to move something away.
At last she noticed us standing there, but whether she ever realised that we were other than forms conjured by her imagination I cannot tell.
She pressed both hands to her side and her breath came in thick gasps.
“I’ve been asleep,” she whispered, “and I dreamt. Yes, it was all a dream. But it keeps coming, coming, and will not go.”
She shuddered.
“When shall I awake?” she cried piteously. “When shall I learn the truth? When will the day come? They say I can’t do it,” she went on, whispering again; “and they always say the same.”
“Well, perhaps you can’t,” suggested Plucritus, softly. “You have never succeeded yet, as you know.”
She looked across and moved towards him.