Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/258

 jewels, reached toward his hands, so gladly raised to hers; and the universe seemed to fold about him, just as a hand closes.

Was it as death she came to him in this dream?—as death made manifest as man's liberation from much vain toil? Kennaston, at least, preferred to think his dreams were not degenerating into such hackneyed crude misleading allegories. Or perhaps it was as ghost of the dead woman he had loved she came, now that he was age-stricken and nearing death, for in this one dream alone he had seemed to be an old man.

Kennaston could not ever be sure; the broken dream remained an enigma; but he got sweet terror and happiness of the dream, for all that, tasting his moment of inexplicable poignant emotion: and therewith he was content.