ttle squealings of brakes.

Everything was so simple now. I went over it all as I waited for the
street car, and as I rode down town. It was strange that Melbourne had
never foreseen that one possibility among so many.

We had sat down in our chairs, and then the adventure had begun. I
had felt the sensation of moving about, of going from place to place.
When I was a child I used to have dreams of walking about the
house and about the streets. I would wake up on the stairs, or at the
door--sleep-walking. Reflexes did it. I had left the chair, under the
influence of the story in the Chamber of Life, and gone out of the room.
I remembered now all those brief moments, when I had seemed poised on
the brink of the real world--the stumbling against some hard object, the
face under the street-lamp, the taxi, the voices. I had been going
through the dark streets, with closed eyes, going toward the
Drive--sleep-walking. And when I slipped over the bank of the river, in
the dream, and down into the water--in reality I had gone over the side
of the Drive, and down into the cold lake.

It had been dawn.

* * * * *

I left the car, and walked down the street, lost in the midst of the
crowds hurrying about me. It was all over, gone like one of those old
dreams of my childhood. I could never forget it--never forget Selda--but
it was gone. It had never existed. It had been cruel of Melbourne, cruel
and ironic, to put Selda in the dream. But perhaps he had never realized
that it would last over into reality.

I had no hope of seeing her again, even in the Chamber. I knew I could
never find Melbourne's home: I had paid no attention to the way the
taxi-driver took. And I wasn't very much interested now. It was only a
dream. I had lost the only girl I had ever loved, in a dream.

I pushed open the door of the Norfolk Lunch. It was late--I had only a
little while for breakfast. I sat down at one of the tables, and spoke
to the waiter in much the usual manner.

"Hello, Joe. I'm in a hurry--bring me bacon and eggs, as usual."

"Coffee, Mr. Barrett?"

"Yes, coffee too. And hurry it up."

It wouldn't do to be late at the office, where I, too, was a maker of
sometimes cruel dreams.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Chamber of Life, by Green Peyton Wertenbaker

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