g the day of
my deliverance, which has come, and thou art come."

Therewith she took Walter's hands and kissed them; but he kissed her
face, and her tears wet her lips. Then she went on: "But sithence,
months ago, the Lady began to weary of this dastard, despite of his
beauty; and then it was thy turn to be swept into her net; I partly guess
how. For on a day in broad daylight, as I was serving my Mistress in the
hall, and the Evil Thing, whose head is now cloven, was lying across the
threshold of the door, as it were a dream fell upon me, though I strove
to cast it off for fear of chastisement; for the pillared hall wavered,
and vanished from my sight, and my feet were treading a rough stone
pavement instead of the marble wonder of the hall, and there was the
scent of the salt sea and of the tackle of ships, and behind me were tall
houses, and before me the ships indeed, with their ropes beating and
their sails flapping and their masts wavering; and in mine ears was the
hale and how of mariners; things that I had seen and heard in the dimness
of my life gone by."

"And there was I, and the Dwarf before me, and the Lady after me, going
over the gangway aboard of a tall ship, and she gathered way and was
gotten out of the haven, and straightway I saw the mariners cast abroad
their ancient."

Quoth Walter: "What then! Sawest thou the blazon thereon, of a wolf-like
beast ramping up against a maiden? And that might well have been thou."

She said: "Yea, so it was; but refrain thee, that I may tell on my tale!
The ship and the sea vanished away, but I was not back in the hall of the
Golden House; and again were we three in the street of the self-same town
which we had but just left; but somewhat dim was my vision thereof, and I
saw little save the door of a goodly house before me, and speedily it
died out, and we were again in the pillared hall, wherein my thralldom
was made manifest."

"Maiden," said Walter, "one question I would ask thee; to wit, didst thou
see me on the quay by the ships?"

"Nay," she said, "there were many folk about, but they were all as images
of the aliens to me. Now hearken further: three months thereafter came
the dream upon me again, when we were all three together in the Pillared
Hall; and again was the vision somewhat dim. Once more we were in the
street of a busy town, but all unlike to that other one, and there were
men standing together on our right hands by the door of a house."