e nearest church and marry him," Lucille
would reply; or--"Stick to him like a leech for evermore, Auntie";
or--"Marry him when he isn't looking, or while he's asleep, if he's
ill--or by the scruff of his neck if he's well...."

(What a pity the Great Mrs. "Justice" Spywell could not hear these
terrible and unmaidenly sentiments! An adventuress of the
"fishing-fleet" in very truth!)

And with reproving smile the gentle spinster would reply:--

"My _dear!_ Suppose anyone overheard you, what _would_ they think?"
Whereunto the naughty girl would answer:--

"The truth, Auntie--that I'm going to pursue some poor young man to
his doom. If Dam were a leper in the gutter, begging his bread, I
would marry him in spite of himself--or share the gutter and bread
in--er--guilty splendour. If he were a criminal in jail I would sit on
the doorstep till he came out, and do the same dreadful thing. I'm
just going to marry Dam at the first possible moment--like the Wild
West 'shoot on sight' idea. I'm going to seize him and marry him and
take care of him for the rest of his life. If he never had another
grief, ache, or pain in the whole of his life, he must have had more
than ten times his share already. Anyhow whether he'll marry me or
whether he won't--in his stupid quixotic ideas of his 'fitness' to do
so--I'm never going to part from him again."

And Auntie Yvette would endeavour to be less shocked than a
right-minded spinster aunt should be at such wild un-Early-Victorian
sentiments.

* * * * *

Come, this was a better sort of dream! This was better than dreaming
of prison-cells, lunatic asylums, tortures by the Snake, lying smashed
on rocks, being eaten alive by vultures, wandering for aeons in red-
hot waterless deserts, and other horrors. However illusory and
tantalizing, this was at least a glorious dream, a delirium to
welcome, a wondrous change indeed--to seem to be holding the hand of
Lucille while she gazed into his eyes and, from time to time, pressed
her lips to his forehead. A good job most of the bandages were gone or
she could hardly have done that, even in a dream. And how wondrously
_real!_ Her hand felt quite solid, there were tears trickling down
her cheeks, tears that sometimes dropped on to his own hand with an
incredible effect of actuality. It was even more vivid than his
Sword-dream which was always so extraordinarily realistic and clear.
And there, yes, by Jove, was dear