Then without any transition in place or time, she finds herself listening to the sound of rippling water.  There is an iron drinking cup close to her hand.  She seems to recognise the spot.  It is Shoreham.  There are the streets she knows so well, the masts of the vessels, the downs.  But suddenly something darkens the sunlight, the tawny body of the snake oscillates, the people cry to her to escape.  She flies along the streets, like the wind she seems to pass.  She calls for help.  Sometimes the crowds are stationary as if frozen into stone, sometimes they follow the snake and attack it with sticks and knives.  One man with colossal shoulders wields a great sabre; it flashes about him like lightning.  Will he kill it?  He turns and chases a dog, and disappears.  The people too have disappeared.  She is flying now along a wild plain covered with coarse grass and wild poppies.  When she glances behind her she sees the outline of the little coast town, the snake is near her, and there is no one to whom she can call for help.  But the sea is in front of her, bound like a blue sash about the cliff’s edge.  She will escape down the rocks—­there is still a chance!  The descent is sheer, but somehow she retains foothold.  Then the snake drops, she feels his weight upon her, and both fall, fall, fall, and the sea is below them....

* * * * *

With a shriek she sprang from the bed, and still under the influence of the dream, rushed to the window.  The moon hung over the sea, the sea flowed with silver, the world was as chill as an icicle.

“The roses, the snake, the cliff’s edge, was it then only a dream?” the girl thought.  “It was only a dream, a terrible dream, but after all only a dream!” In her hope breathes again, and she smiles like one who thinks he is going to hear that he will not die, but as the old pain returns when the last portion of the deceptive sentence is spoken, so despair came back to her when remembrance pierced the cloud of hallucination, and told her that all was not a dream—­there was something that was worse than a dream.

She uttered a low cry, and she moaned.  Centuries seemed to have passed, and yet the evil deed remained.  It was still night, but what would the day bring to her?  There was no hope.  Abstract hope from life, and what blank agony you create!

She drew herself up on her bed, and lay with her face buried in the pillow.  For the face was beside her:  the foul smell was in her nostrils, and the dull, liquorish look of the eyes shone through the darkness.  Then sleep came again, and she lay stark and straight as if she were dead, with the light of the moon upon her face.  And she sees herself dead.  And all her friends are about her crowning her with flowers, beautiful garlands of white roses, and dressing her in a long white robe, white as the snowiest cloud in heaven, and it lies in long straight plaits about her limbs like the robes of those