rt. She
said funnily, looking at the arrow sparkling in the gas light:

"Ah! That poor philistinish ornament!"

An echo of our early days, not more innocent but so much more youthful,
was in her tone; and we both, as if touched with poignant regret, looked
at each other with enlightened eyes.

"Yes," I said, "how far away all this is. And you wouldn't leave even
that object behind when you came last in here. Perhaps it is for that
reason it haunted me--mostly at night. I dreamed of you sometimes as a
huntress nymph gleaming white through the foliage and throwing this arrow
like a dart straight at my heart. But it never reached it. It always
fell at my feet as I woke up. The huntress never meant to strike down
that particular quarry."

"The huntress was wild but she was not evil. And she was no nymph, but
only a goatherd girl. Dream of her no more, my dear."

I had the strength of mind to make a sign of assent and busied myself
arranging a couple of pillows at one end of the sofa. "Upon my soul,
goatherd, you are not responsible," I said. "You are not! Lay down that
uneasy head," I continued, forcing a half-playful note into my immense
sadness, "that has even dreamed of a crown--but not for itself."

She lay down quietly. I covered her up, looked once into her eyes and
felt the restlessness of fatigue over-power me so that I wanted to
stagger out, walk straight before me, stagger on and on till I dropped.
In the end I lost myself in thought. I woke with a start to her voice
saying positively:

"No. Not even in this room. I can't close my eyes. Impossible. I have
a horror of myself. That voice in my ears. All true. All true."

She was sitting up, two masses of tawny hair fell on each side of her
tense face. I threw away the pillows from which she had risen and sat
down behind her on the couch. "Perhaps like this," I suggested, drawing
her head gently on my breast. She didn't resist, she didn't even sigh,
she didn't look at me or attempt to settle herself in any way. It was I
who settled her after taking up a position which I thought I should be
able to keep for hours--for ages. After a time I grew composed enough to
become aware of the ticking of the clock, even to take pleasure in it.
The beat recorded the moments of her rest, while I sat, keeping as still
as if my life depended upon it with my eyes fixed idly on the arrow of
gold gleaming and glittering dimly on the table under the low