The Forest Lovers

He went to bed; but Tortsentier was not to see him on the morrow. All

was not well. He had a dream which drew all the apprehensions and

suspicions of the day into one head. The hidden things were made

plain, and the crooked things straight; for the first time, it seemed,

he was to see openly--when his eyes were shut. He had, in spite of

himself, centred them one by one in Isoult, and now he dreamed of her

as she was, and of them as they were. This was his dream. He and she

were together, lying under the stars in the open wood with his drawn

sword between them, set edgeways as it had always been. He lay awake,

but Isoult was asleep, and moaning in her sleep. The sound was like

voiced sighs which came quickly with her breath. He lay and watched

her in the perfectly clear light there was, and presently the moaning

ceased, and she opened her eyes to look at him. But though they were

wide, they were blank; he knew that she slept still. She moved her

lips to speak, but without sound; she strained out her arms to him,

but he could not take her. And, leaning more and more towards him, the

edge of the sword pressed her bare bosom, yet she seemed not to heed

it; and presently it broke the skin, and she pressed it in deeper, as

if glad of the sharp pain; and then the blood leapt out and flooded

her night-dress. Her arms dropt, she sighed once, she closed her eyes

languidly as if mortally tired. Then she lay very still, white to the

lips, and Prosper knew that she was dead. So in his own dream he cried

out and tried to come at her, but could not because of the red sword.

He woke in a cold sweat and lay trembling, blenched with fear. The

dream had been so vivid that involuntarily he turned in his bed to

look again at what haunted him, the dying eyes, the white body, and

the blood. Terror, when once he had accepted the fact that she was

dead, gave place to pity--a pity more intense than he had ever

conceived. He had pitied her on the night of their marriage, but never

to such a degree that he felt heart-broken at the mere knowledge of

such things. And now, as the principal actor in a play, she grew in

importance. He began to see that she was more than an incident; she

was of the stuff of his life.

What was more odd was, that in the dream he had wanted her, as she

him; and that he could look back upon it now and understand the

desire. With all the shock that still crowded about him till the

shadowy room seemed full of it, there was this one beam of

remembrance, like sunlight in a dusty place. He too had held out his

arms: he had wanted to take her, to hold her, white and unearthly

though she might be--dying as she certainly was. Waking, this seemed

very strange to him, for he had never wanted her before; and though

(as I say) the remembrance brought a glow along with it, he did not

want her in that way now. Supposing that she were alive and lying

here, he knew that he should not want her. But the red sword! He

shuddered and closed his eyes; there she was, pitifully dead of a

wound in the breast. I suppose he was not more superstitious than most

people of his day, but he knew that he must go to Gracedieu.