lay for a while staring up into the verdurous dusk overhead and trying
mentally to see his friend at Saint-Germain hurry toward some quiet
stream-side where HE waited, as he had seen that trusting creature hurry
an hour before. It would be hard to say how well he succeeded; but the
effort soothed rather than excited him, and as he had had a good deal
both of moral and physical fatigue he sank at last into a quiet sleep.
While he slept moreover he had a strange and vivid dream. He seemed to
be in a wood, very much like the one on which his eyes had lately
closed; but the wood was divided by the murmuring stream he had left an
hour before. He was walking up and down, he thought, restlessly and in
intense expectation of some momentous event. Suddenly, at a distance,
through the trees, he saw a gleam of a woman's dress, on which he
hastened to meet her. As he advanced he recognised her, but he saw at
the same time that she was on the other bank of the river. She seemed at
first not to notice him, but when they had come to opposite places she
stopped and looked at him very gravely and pityingly. She made him no
sign that he must cross the stream, but he wished unutterably to stand
by her side. He knew the water was deep, and it seemed to him he knew
how he should have to breast it and how he feared that when he rose to
the surface she would have disappeared. Nevertheless he was going to
plunge when a boat turned into the current from above and came swiftly
toward them, guided by an oarsman who was sitting so that they couldn't
see his face. He brought the boat to the bank where Longmore stood; the
latter stepped in, and with a few strokes they touched the opposite
shore. Longmore got out and, though he was sure he had crossed the
stream, Madame de Mauves was not there. He turned with a kind of agony
and saw that now she was on the other bank--the one he had left. She
gave him a grave silent glance and walked away up the stream. The boat
and the boatman resumed their course, but after going a short distance
they stopped and the boatman turned back and looked at the still divided