In response he heard some one move over a creaking floor. A sulphur match spluttered. A candle caught fire, silhouetting—illusion, of course!—the figure of a woman. Water splashed. Water splashed noisily. Alan became aware of some one who stood at his side, one hand offering a glass, the other gently raising his head that he might drink.
Draining the glass, he breathed his thanks and sank back, retaining his grasp on the wrist of that unreal hand. The hallucination went so far as to say, in a woman's soft accents:
"You are better, Alan?"
He sighed incredulously: "Rose!"
The voice responded, "Yes!" Then the perfume of roses grew still more strong, and a miracle came to pass: for Mr. Law, who realized poignantly that all this was sheer nonsense, distinctly felt lips like velvet caress his forehead.
He closed his eyes, tightened his grasp on that hand of phantasy, and muttered.
The voice asked: "What is it, dear?"
He responded; "Delirium. … But I like it. … Let me rave!"
Then again he slept.
