“I want to say good night to you, Lyndall,” she said, coming to the bedside and kneeling down.
“I thought you were asleep,” Lyndall replied.
“Yes, I have been asleep; but I had such a vivid dream,” she said, holding the other’s hands, “and that woke me. I never had so vivid a dream before.
“It seemed I was a little girl again, and I came somewhere into a large room. On a bed in the corner there was something lying dressed in white, and its little eyes were shut, and its little face was like wax. I thought it was a doll, and I ran forward to take it; but some one held up her finger and said: ‘Hush! it is a little dead baby.’ And I said: ‘Oh, I must go and call Lyndall, that she may look at it also.’
“And they put their faces close down to my ear and whispered: ‘It is Lyndall’s baby.’
“And I said: ‘She cannot be grown up yet; she is only a little girl! Where is she?’ And I went to look for you, but I could not find you.
“And when I came to some people who were dressed in black, I asked them where you were, and they looked down at their black clothes, and shook their heads, and said nothing; and I could not find you anywhere. And then I awoke.
“Lyndall,” she said, putting her face down upon the hands she held, “it made me think about that time when we were little girls and used to play together, when I loved you better than anything else in the world. It isn’t any one’s fault that they love you; they can’t help it. And it isn’t your fault; you don’t make them love you. I know it.”
“Thank you, dear,” Lyndall said. “It is nice to be loved, but it would be better to be good.”
Then they wished good night, and Em went back to her room. Long after Lyndall lay in the dark thinking, thinking, thinking; and as she turned round wearily to sleep she muttered: