"Why, that is as may be, Gildres," said the Countess, "but I do think so. It comes to me that when this my sister sets forth she shall pass through here, and thou shalt accompany her farther on. Do then thy service here the more diligently, as in the hope of it."
"Madam, I will," said he joyfully, and she,
"Now soothe her hand, Alys, with me, for she should be sleeping now."
Then they took each a hand and stroked it, and she lost herself in sleep, dreamless, save for the winter moonlight and the chanting and the hum of bees.
When she woke her hand was still held, but very firmly, and the humming was seen to be the revolving of light discs under their dome of glass.
"Ah! Now we have a steady pulse," said the doctor, "and you—too dear a friend to lose by your own folly!—I shall not scold you yet. But what a fright to give me! A little more and you would have found your Lethe oversoon, old friend."
She shook her head and smiled. "No longer, no longer!" she said. "So long as the current bears me, I am for that River of Life that you and I must keep at flood."
Now that she has dropped these strange tales, and gone too far for me to hear her voice, I find that in picking them up they have lost much of the force and clearness her telling gave them. Yet I cannot see that I have left anything out. It may be that my dull pen has clouded them. Blame me, then, and not the tales, for they were made most wonderfully plain to me.
That things very real occurred to her, no one could doubt who could hear her relate them. And if they have grown unreal and feeble in the telling, the fault must be wholly mine—the imperfect and unsuccessful scribe.