"Your Grace will catch cold by that open window. I had better close it."
"It's stifling—stifling."
"Will you have dinner now?"
"No—no. Why do you worry me? I can eat nothing."
Dorchester was seriously alarmed; an evening like this might very easily.... She determined to send word round to Dr. Christopher.
She went away, gave directions about the dinner, saw that her mistress's bedroom was warm and comfortable.
She came back. The Duchess was sitting up, colour in her cheeks and her eyes sparkling. On her lap lay a note.
"I've had a dream, Dorchester—a horrid dream. I was disturbed for a moment. I think I will eat something after all."
"The way she goes up and down!" thought Dorchester. "Must say I don't like the look of her—not knowing her own mind, so unlike her—Who's the letter from, I wonder?"
It was the letter, plainly, that had done it. Sitting up and enjoying her soup, forgetting that black sky and the Dragon's scaly menace, the Duchess knew that that dream—that dream about God—had been as silly, as futile as dreams always are.