He was gone. Allida did not turn to Haldicott. She remained looking at the door that had closed on the exit of her "best beloved."
"But _why_?" said Haldicott. He repeated Ainslie's broken words almost faintly. "When the dream came true--why didn't you take it?"
"I never meant that because it had been a dream it couldn't become a reality," he went on.
She looked vaguely round the room. Indeed, things swam to her; the nearest support was the mantelpiece. She leaned against it, looking down.
"It's not anything I said--in my efforts to shake you awake? You _were_ in love with him, you know. Weren't you in love with him, Allida?"
"Yes; I suppose so. How can I tell you anything? All I know is that I was dreaming."
"You killed it, perhaps," she said in a colourless voice, leaning her forehead upon her hand, and still looking fixedly down.
"I--_I_ killed it? You mean--that any one who had come then--would have stopped you--made you see your own folly--waked you?"
"They might have stopped me--they might have saved me," she said, and she paused.
"But only I could wake you? Only I could prevent the coming true of your dream?" Again in his wondering, groping voice was the feeling that, like a torch, had led her up from Tartarus--up through blackness to the sweet air again.
She still hid her eyes, not daring to look or trust.
"Oh," she said in a voice so low that it did not shake--it was as if she just dared to let it sound at all--"was your dream true, or was it only the rope you threw out to me to drag me on shore with?"
"Do you mean that my three hours of reality count for more than his--than his, backed by your whole year of dreaming? Allida, are you really absurd enough to say that I count for more than Oliver Ainslie?"
She put her weary, ashamed head down on the arm that leaned upon the mantelpiece. She did not take his hand.
"What can I say? Everything I say seems unbelievable. Can anything I say be more absurd than anything else? Yes, you do count for more. You count for everything. Did I love him--or did I only love love? I don't know. I only know that what you said--and are--made it all a dream. And now you will think that I am going to kill myself because _you_ don't love me! But my absurdity is over, I promise you. Really, I am awake."