He dreams of her that night for the first time, dreams of her execution. She is at the guillotine, and he is in the crowd, having been cheering for the demise of countless other aristocrats. She is in that beautiful, ridiculous frock he had seen through the window at Downton, and she is dazzling.
When he sees her step up his heart nearly leaves his body; he feels the same crippling claustrophobia as he had earlier that day at the count. He tries to push through the crowd—he hadn't wanted this at all—and shouts her name.
She looks up and smiles her funny little vague smile, eyes bright.
"Isn't it exciting?" she asks.
The guards push her to her knees and he is screaming in earnest now, waking himself.
He realizes then how far in over his head he is.
Years later, he still dreams of her. Nearly every night, she appears, ethereally beautiful, and it is as if nothing has changed.
Sometimes she is in her nurse's uniform, the one from the war, and she is bending over faceless patients, her loose hair cascading down over her shoulders. (She would have laughed and told him that that was unhygienic, Tom, but it makes his heart burst.) She is glowing, for she is beautiful and good and kind and not seizing and dying under his hands.
She does not notice him but keeps working, smiling slightly, and he watches her as he did for so long. He can't touch her but he knows her hands are soft and he remembers the way they feel on his skin.
He wakes up and he can barely move, wishing he could go back to sleep and return to her. They are together for the rest of time, in his dreams.
