slept and, the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes.
He shrank from it.
One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon
was high and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver. The
stillness of lake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not
go into the villa he lived in. He walked down to a little bowered
terrace at the water s edge and sat upon a seat and breathed in all the
heavenly scents of the night. He felt the strange calmness stealing
over him and it grew deeper and deeper until he fell asleep.
He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his
dream was so real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming. He
remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought
he was. He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the late
roses and listened to the lapping of the water at his feet he heard a
voice calling. It was sweet and clear and happy and far away. It seemed
very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at his very
side.
Archie! Archie! Archie! it said, and then again, sweeter and clearer
than before, Archie! Archie!
He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled. It was such a real
voice and it seemed so natural that he should hear it.
Lilias! Lilias! he answered. Lilias! where are you?
In the garden, it came back like a sound from a golden flute. In the
garden!
And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken. He slept soundly and
sweetly all through the lovely night. When he did awake at last it was
brilliant morning and a servant was standing staring at him. He was an
Italian servant and was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa
were, to accepting without question any strange thing his foreign
master might do. No one ever knew when he would go out or come in or
where he would choose to sleep or if he would roam about the garden or
lie in the boat on the lake all night. The man held a salver with some
letters on it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them. When he
228