hought it was death. And then I awoke
again, but it was not here--it was in a strange wide place--a sort of
twilight, and there were hills and trees. I stood up, and suddenly felt
a hand in my own, and there was a little child beside me, looking up at
me. I can't tell you what happened next--it is rather dim to me, but I
sate, or walked, or wandered, carrying the child--and it TALKED to me;
yes, it talked in a little clear voice, though I can't remember
anything it said; but I felt somehow as if it was telling me what might
have been, and that I was getting to KNOW it somehow--does that seem
strange? It seems like months and years that I was with it; and I feel
now that I not only love it, but know it, all its thoughts, all its
desires, all its faults--it had FAULTS, dearest; think of that--faults
such as I have, and other faults as well. It was not quite content, but
it was not unhappy; but it wasn't a dream-child at all, not like a
little angel, but a perfectly real child. It laughed sometimes, and I
can hear its little laughter now; it found fault with me, it wanted to
go on--it cried sometimes, and nothing would please it; but it loved me
and wanted to be with me; and I told it about you, and it not only
listened, but asked me many times over to tell it more, about you,
about me, about this place--I think it had other things in its mind,
recollections, I thought, which it tried to tell me; so it went on.
Once or twice I found myself here in bed--but I thought I was dying,
and only wanted to lose myself and get back to the child--and then it
all came to an end. There was a great staircase up which we went
together; there was cloud at the top, but it seemed to me that there
was life and movement behind it; there was no shadow behind the cloud,
but light . . . and there was sound, musical sound. I went up with the
child's hand clasped close in my own, but at the top he disengaged
himself, and went in without a word to me or a sign, not as if he were
leaving me, but as if his real life, and mine too, were within--just as
a child would run into its home, if you came back with it from a walk,
and as if it knew you were following, and there was no need of
good-byes. I did not feel any sorrow at all then, either for the child
or myself--I simply turned round and came down . . . and then I was
back in my room again . . . and then it was you that I wanted."

"That's all very wonderful," said Howard, musing, "wonderful and
bea