But the dream was kinder to Hellayne than life.
She stood upon a rocky promontory in her own far-off land of Provence.
Before her spread the peace of the wide, glimmering sea.
What are these golden columns through which the water glistens?
A man stood within the ruins of a great temple, the sea before him, violet hills behind. From the summit of an island mountain in the bay the lilt of a tender song was drifting upwards.
And, as he sang, the great sea stirred. It heaved, it writhed, it rose. With onward movement, as of a coiling serpent, the whole vast liquid brilliance rushed upon the temple. Mighty billows of beryl curved and broke in sheets of white foam.
"Fear nothing," said the man. "Your river has found the sea!"
It was Tristan's voice.
From the distance came the faint tolling of a bell, forlorn, as from a forest chapel, infinitely sweet and tremulous. In a faint light, like a mountain mist at dawn, the whole scene faded away, and Hellayne was in a garden—a rose garden. She had been there before, but how different it all was. She was being smothered in roses. Flame roses every one—curled into fiery petal whorls, dancing in the garden dusk under a red, red sky.
Ah! There it is again, the terrible face, leering from among the branches, the face that froze the blood in her veins, that made her heart turn cold as ice and filled her soul with horror.