. .
all--through--the night--under--this--moonlight. . . . I can
sleep--sleep--'
"I began to sink softly down, with the heavenliest feeling of relaxation
and repose, as if there existed only the soul of beautiful rest. I sank
so softly--and just as my cheek almost touched the grass the dream was
over!"
"Oh!" cried Mrs. MacNairn. "Did you awaken?"
"No. I came back. In my sleep I suddenly found myself creeping into my
bed again as if I had been away somewhere. I was wondering why I was
there, how I had left the hillside, when I had left it. That part
WAS a dream--but the other was not. I was allowed to go
somewhere--outside--and come back."
I caught at her hand in the dark.
"The words are all wrong," I said. "It is because we have no words to
describe that. But have I made you feel it at all? Oh! Mrs. MacNairn,
have I been able to make you know that it was not a dream?"
She lifted my hand and pressed it passionately against her cheek, and
her cheek, too, was wet--wet.
"No, it was not a dream," she said. "You came back. Thank God you came
back, just to tell us that those who do not come back stand awakened in
that ecstasy--in that ecstasy. And The Fear is nothing. It is only
The Dream. The awakening is out on the hillside, out on the hillside!
Listen!" She started as she said it. "Listen! The nightingale is
beginning again.
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