grew hotter and I began to get more and more muddled in my mind. They were dreams of Briar, and of Maud.
For I never dreamed of her as I knew she really was—as a viper or a thief. I never dreamed of Gentleman. I only ever used to dream that we were back in her uncle''s house, and I was her maid. I dreamed we walked to her mother''s grave, or sat by the river. I dreamed I dressed her and brushed her hair. I dreamed—you can''t be blamed, can you, for what you dream?—I dreamed I loved her. I knew I hated her. I knew I wanted to kill her. But sometimes I would wake, in the night, not knowing. I would open my eyes and look about me, and the room would be so warm everyone would have turned and fretted in their beds—I would see Betty''s great bare leg, Nurse Bacon''s sweating face, Miss Wilson''s arm. Mrs
Price put back her hair as she slept, rather in the way that Maud had used to do: I would gaze at her in my half-sleep and quite forget the weeks that had passed, since the end of April. I would forget the flight from Briar, forget the wedding in the black flint church, forget the days at Mrs Cream''s, the drive to the madhouse, the awful trick; forget I meant to escape, and what I planned to do when I had done it. I would only think, in a kind of panic, Where is she? Where is she?—and then, with a rush of relief: There she is . . .1 would close my eyes again and, in an instant, be not in my bed at all but in hers. The curtains would be let down, and she would be beside me. I would feel her breath. ''How close the night is, tonight!'' she would say, in her soft voice; and then: ''I''m afraid! I''m afraid—!''