t lie down now, or the cold will make you ill. You mustn''t be ill.''
I swim in black confusion for another moment; then the dream slips from me all at once and I know her, and know myself—my past, my present, my ungaugeable future. She is a stranger to me, but part of it all.
''Don''t leave me, Sue!'' I say.
I feel her hesitate. When she draws away, I grip her tighter. But she moves only to climb across me, and she comes beneath the sheet and lies with her arm about me, her mouth against my hair.
She is cold, and makes me cold. I shiver, but soon lie still. ''There,'' she says then. She murmurs it. I feel the movement of her breath and, deep in the bone of my cheek, the gentle rumble of her voice. ''There. Now you''ll sleep—won''t you? Good girl.''
Good girl, she says. How long has it been since anyone at Briar believed me good? But she believes it. She must believe it, for the working of our plot. I must be good, and kind, and simple. Isn''t gold said to be good? I am like gold to her, after all. She has come to ruin me; but, not yet. For now she must guard me, keep me sound and safe as a hoard of coins she means, at last, to squander—
I know it; but cannot feel it as I should. I sleep in her arms, dreamless and still, and wake to the warmth and closeness of her. She moves away as she feels me stir. She rubs her eye. Her hair is loose and touches my own. Her face, in sleep, has lost a little of its sharpness. Her brow is smooth, her lashes powdery, her gaze, when it meets mine, quite clear, untinged with mockery or malice . . . She smiles. She yawns. She rises. The blanket lifts and falls, and