I was lying in bed in my old room at Appleby Hundred.  The armored soldier was glowering down upon me from his frame over the chimney piece; the great blackened clothes-press loomed darkly in its corner; the show of curious china filled the shelves where my boyhood books had rested; and there was the same faint smell of lavender in the bed linen that once—­was it yesterday or months ago?—­had minded me of my mother.

When I sought to move me on the pillows the dream seemed more than ever dream-sure.  The pain of a sword wound was grinding at my shoulder, and I was bandaged stiff as I had been that other day.

So I said, as you have said in like awakenings, “Dear God,’twas but a dream!” and saying it, would turn my head to see if Mistress Margery were sitting where I last remembered her.

She was there, in very deed and truth, deep in the hollow of the great chair of Indian wickerwork; and as before, the soft graying of the evening sky was mirrored in her eyes.

I sighed, and there was a catching of the breath at the bottom of it.  Truly, the wondrous dream had had its agonies, but there were also beatitudes to tip the scale the other way.  For I had dreamed this sweet-faced watcher was my wife—­in name, at least.

’Twas while I looked, minding not the eye-ache the effort cost, that she rose and came softly to the bedside.  She said no word, but, as once in the dream-time, she laid a cool palm on my forehead.  Weak as I was—­and surely King David was not weaker when he wrote his bones were gone to water—­the old love-madness of that other day came to thrill me at her touch, and I made as if I would take her hand and press it to my lips.

“Nay, sir,” she said, with a swift return to sick-room discipline, “you must not stir; you have been sorely hurt.”

“Aye,” said I; “I do remember; ’twas in a duel with one Francis Falconnet.  He said he would make you his—­”

Now the soft palm was laid on my lips, and I kissed it till she snatched it away.

“Ma foi!” she cried; “I think you are in a hopeful way to recover now, Captain Ireton.  I do protest I shall go and send old Anthony to sit with you.”

“Anthony?” said I; “he was in the dream, too, putting up the chain on the hall door.”

“Ah, mon Dieu!” she said softly, as if to herself, “he is wandering yet.”  At which, as if to try to help me:  “’Twas no dream; you did see him putting on the chain.”

“Did I?  I made sure I dreamed it.  But tell me another thing; was it not yesterday that I met Sir Francis Falconnet under the oaks in the wood field and got this pair of redhot pincers in my shoulder?”

She turned away, and if I ever saw a tear there was one trembling in her eyelashes.

“’Twas three full weeks ago,” she said.  “And it was not in the wood field—­’twas in the wine cellar.  Never tell me you do not remember; I—­I could never—­ah, Mother of Sorrows! that would be worse than all.”