Sir Richmond woke up at dawn and he woke out of an extraordinary dream.
He was saying to Miss Grammont: “There is no other marriage than the
marriage of true minds. There is no other marriage than the marriage of
true minds.” He saw her as he had seen her the evening before, light and
cool, coming towards him in the moonlight from the hotel. But also in
the inconsistent way of dreams he was very close to her kind, faintly
smiling face, and his eyes were wet with tears and he was kissing
her hand. “My dear wife and mate,” he was saying, and suddenly he was
kissing her cool lips.
He woke up and stared at his dream, which faded out only very slowly
before the fresh sun rise upon the red tiles and tree boughs outside the
open window, and before the first stir and clamour of the birds.
He felt like a court in which some overwhelmingly revolutionary piece of
evidence had been tendered. All the elaborate defence had broken down at
one blow. He sat up on the edge of his bed, facing the new fact.
“This is monstrous and ridiculous,” he said, “and Martineau judged me
exactly. I am in love with her.... I am head over heels in love with
her. I have never been so much in love or so truly in love with anyone
before.”