you also aroused me from my sun-dreams?"

"Did I? And can't you resume them?"

"You save me the necessity."

"Oh, that is a second-hand compliment," she said disdainfully--"a weak
plagiarism on what I conveyed very wittily. You were probably really
asleep, and dreaming of bird-murder."

He waited for her to finish, then, amused eyes searching, he roamed
about until high on a little drifted sand dune he found a place for
himself; and while she watched him indignantly, he curled up in the
sunshine, and, dropping his head on the hot sand, calmly closed his
eyes.

"Upon--my word!" she breathed aloud.

He unclosed his eyes. "Now you may dream; you can't avoid it," he
observed lazily, and closed his eyes; and neither taunts nor jeers nor
questions, nor fragments of shells flung with intent to hit, stirred him
from his immobility.

She tired of the attempt presently, and sat silent, elbows on her
thighs, hands propping her chin. Thoughts, vague as the fitful breeze,
arose, lingered, and, like the breeze, faded, dissolved into calm,
through which, cadenced by the far beat of the ebb tide, her heart
echoed, beating the steady intervals of time.

She had not meant to dream, but as she sat there, the fine-spun golden
threads flying from the whirling loom of dreams floated about her,
settling over her, entangling her in unseen meshes, so that she stirred,
groping amid the netted brightness, drawn onward along dim paths and
through corridors of thought where, always beyond, vague splendours
seemed to beckon.

Now lost, now restless, conscious of the perils of the shining path she
followed, the rhythm of an ocean soothing her to false security, she
dreamed on awake, unconscious of the tinted sea and sky which stained
her eyes to hues ineffable. A long while afterward a small cloud floated
across the sun; and, in the sudden shadow on the world, doubt sounded
its tiny voice, and her ears listened, and the enchantment faded and
died away.

Turning, she looked across the sand at the man lying there; her eyes
considered him--how long she did not know, she did not heed--until,
stirring, he looked up; and she paled a trifle and closed her eyes,
stunned by the sudden clamour of pulse and heart.

When he rose and walked over, she looked up gravely, pouring the last
handful of white sand through her stretched fingers.

"Did you dream?" he asked lightly.

"Yes."

"Did you dream true?"

"Nothing of my dream can happen," she