Long after the light sound of Audrey's step had died away on the garden path, Richard Harrison sat and dreamed.  Of late, exhausted by cold and fatigue, he had begun to lose control of his mind: he had sometimes found himself forgetting what dangers threatened him, and in what direction he had decided to turn his steps; and even when he could force himself to think, he had grown too desperate to care what peril might be in wait for him.  It might be only the pestilential den men then called a jail; it might be the slave-ship, and the chain-gang in Barbadoes; it might be the gibbet, with the hand of the executioner scrabbling in his entrails.  Well, let it be, if it must.  His imagination seemed too dull to realize his danger, or work out any coherent scheme of escaping it.  It could only brood over one horrible memory, till he felt he could have welcomed the pike thrust of a soldier or the lash of a slave-driver, if only they roused him from the dreams that bordered on insanity.  Now, suddenly, he found himself awake.  He was his sane self again.  A girl's calm voice, a girl's clear eyes seemed to have exorcised the demon that had pursued him.  He remembered with a surprise that was full of relief that he had talked to her for long that evening, and his words had been coherent--that he had actually jested!  He was not mad!  That horrible execution was true; it was no insane dream; but other things were real too.  In what strange world had he been living?  Had that sullen, desperate wretch been indeed Dick Harrison?  He realized that he was alive; he could still enjoy the common comforts of food and fire; he could think; he could plan!  His feet were once more treading solid earth; his brain began to spin anew the projects that had delighted him of yore; his heart began to stir with the hopes of old.  Across the sea there were still battles to fight, new states to found.  Liberty was not an idle word; love might still make life glorious.  It seemed as if some healing touch had awakened him from a fevered dream, and recalled him to saner and earlier memories than those that tortured him; and when he stretched his weary limbs on the unwonted luxury of a bed, the old dreams awoke and bore him company all night long.