ouch, staring
down at her bare, cold feet, at her laboring breast, rising and falling
under her open nightdress.

The dream was gone, but the feverish reality of it still pervaded her
and she held it as the vibrating string holds a tone. In the last hour
the shadows had had their way with Caroline. They had shown her the
nothingness of time and space, of system and discipline, of closed doors
and broad waters. Shuddering, she thought of the Arabian fairy tale in
which the genie brought the princess of China to the sleeping prince
of Damascus and carried her through the air back to her palace at dawn.
Caroline closed her eyes and dropped her elbows weakly upon her knees,
her shoulders sinking together. The horror was that it had not come
from without, but from within. The dream was no blind chance; it was the
expression of something she had kept so close a prisoner that she had
never seen it herself, it was the wail from the donjon deeps when the
watch slept. Only as the outcome of such a night of sorcery could the
thing have been loosed to straighten its limbs and measure itself with
her; so heavy were the chains upon it, so many a fathom deep, it was
crushed down into darkness. The fact that d'Esquerre happened to be on
the other side of the world meant nothing; had he been here, beside her,
it could scarcely have hurt her self-respect so much. As it was, she was
without even the extenuation of an outer impulse, and she could scarcely
have despised herself more had she come to him here in the night three
weeks ago and thrown herself down upon the stone slab at the door there.

Caroline rose unsteadily and crept guiltily from the lodge and along the
path under the arbor, terrified lest the servants should be stirring,
trembling with the chill air, while the wet shrubbery, brushing against
her, drenched her nightdress until it clung about her limbs.

At breakfast her husband looked across the table at her with concern.
"It seems to me that you are looking rather fagged, Caroline. It was a
beastly night to sleep. Why don't you go up to the mountains until this
hot weather is over? By the way, were you in earnest about letting the
lodge stand?"

Caroline laughed quietly. "No, I find I was not very serious. I haven't
sentiment enough to forego a summer house. Will you tell Baker to come
tomorrow to talk it over with me? If we are to have a house party, I
should like to put him to work on it at once."

Noble gave her a