ll--that you
love me in return. Everything is possible in dreams, you know, dear. My
dreams are all I have, so I go far in them, even to dreaming that you
are my wife. I dream how I shall fix up my dull old house for you. One
room will need nothing more--it is your room, dear, and has been ready
for you a long time--long before that day I saw you under the pine. Your
books and your chair and your picture are there, dear--only the picture
is not half lovely enough. But the other rooms of the house must be made
to bloom out freshly for you. What a delight it is thus to dream of
what I would do for you! Then I would bring you home, dear, and lead
you through my garden and into my house as its mistress. I would see you
standing beside me in the old mirror at the end of the hall--a bride,
in your pale blue dress, with a blush on your face. I would lead you
through all the rooms made ready for your coming, and then to your own.
I would see you sitting in your own chair and all my dreams would
find rich fulfilment in that royal moment. Oh, Alice, we would have a
beautiful life together! It's sweet to make believe about it. You will
sing to me in the twilight, and we will gather early flowers together
in the spring days. When I come home from work, tired, you will put
your arms about me and lay your head on my shoulder. I will stroke
it--so--that bonny, glossy head of yours. Alice, my Alice--all mine in
my dream--never to be mine in real life--how I love you!"

The Alice behind him could bear no more. She gave a little choking cry
that betrayed her presence. Jasper Dale sprang up and gazed upon her. He
saw her standing there, amid the languorous shadows of August, pale with
feeling, wide-eyed, trembling.

For a moment shyness wrung him. Then every trace of it was banished by a
sudden, strange, fierce anger that swept over him. He felt outraged and
hurt to the death; he felt as if he had been cheated out of something
incalculably precious--as if sacrilege had been done to his most holy
sanctuary of emotion. White, tense with his anger, he looked at her and
spoke, his lips as pale as if his fiery words scathed them.

"How dare you? You have spied on me--you have crept in and listened! How
dare you? Do you know what you have done, girl? You have destroyed all
that made life worth while to me. My dream is dead. It could not live
when it was betrayed. And it was all I had. Oh, laugh at me--mock me! I
know that I am ridiculous! Wha