But all this was left behind now, and as far
as she could make out, she was quite in the open country,
though in the darkness she could hardly distinguish objects
three yards off. She found a big stone however, before long,
and sitting down on it, leaning her head against a tree, in
five minutes the child was soundly asleep.
How long she slept she never knew. Tired out, her repose was
at first profound and unconscious; but presently it began to
be haunted by confused dreams, in which past, present, and
future were mingled together. She dreamt that she was
wandering in some immense vaulted hall, where she had never
been before, and which yet resembled the refectory of the
convent; for long tables were spread as for the evening meal,
and in the twilight, black-robed nuns whose faces she could
never see, were gliding to and fro. And then, how or why she
did not know, they were no longer the deal tables of the
convent, with their coarse white cloths and earthenware
plates, but the long green tables of the Kursaal, with Aunt
Therese as croupier, and all the nuns pushing and raking the
piles of money backwards and forwards.
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