"Marianne," he said, gathering himself, and all the best in himself, together for victory over his temperament and hers—"oh, Marianne, we are not to be held responsible for our dreams. You know how it is with our restless, wayward fancies: one little passing discord in real life becomes magnified and expanded into an immense orchestra of discordant strains in that dream-life over which we seem to have no control. Don't you understand—can't you understand?"

"You dreamed it," she said slowly, "and it was so vivid to you that it broke through all barriers and reached me in my dream. It must have been born of your inmost thoughts, bred up and strengthened through these long years of our misunderstandings, until it reached its full maturity. We should indeed each have gone a separate way long ago. But it is not too late even now."

"Not too late to find the key to each other even now," he said. "Let us try to do it. Where others have failed, let us make a triumph. It is not our hearts which are at war, Marianne: our hearts mean well to each other. It is our temperaments which cause all the strife."

"We can make no triumph," she answered. "I have ruined your life, murdered your spirit, crushed out the best in you."

"It was a dream," he cried passionately. "Let it go the way of all dreams."

[20]

[20]

She shook her head.

"We must part to-morrow," she said, "and to-morrow will be the day of your re-birth."

"You stab me with your words," he said, as he passed, with head bowed, to the door.

"And you stab me with your dreams," she replied.

"We are both very unhappy," he said, as he paused on the threshold.

"Yes," she said, "very unhappy."

And she closed her door.

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