‘Yes, Winnie.’

Then her eyes wandered down over her dress, and she said, ’Ah! how strange I did not notice my green fairy kirtle before.  And I declare I never felt till this moment the wreath of gold leaves round my forehead.  Do they shine much in the sun?’

‘They quite dazzle me, Winnie,’ I said, arching my hand above my eyes, as if to protect them from the glare.

‘Do you have a nice fire there when it’s very cold?’ she said.

‘Yes, Winifred,’ I said.

She then sank into silence, while I kept plying her with food.

After she had appeased her hunger she sat looking into the pool, quite unconscious, apparently, of my presence by her side, and lost in a reverie similar to that which I had seen at the cottage.

The form her dementia had taken was unlike anything that I had ever conceived.  Madness seemed too coarse a word to denote so wonderful and fascinating a mental derangement.  Mivart’s comparison to a musical-box recurred to me, and seemed most apt.  She was in a waking dream.  The peril lay in breaking through that dream and bringing her real life before her.  There was a certain cogency of dreamland in all she said and did.  And I found that she sank into silent reverie simply because she waited, like a person in sleep, for the current of her thoughts to be directed and dictated by external phenomena.  As she sat there gazing in the pool, her hand gradually warming between my two hands, I felt that never when sane, never in her most bewitching moments, had she been so lovable as she was now.  This new kind of spell she exercised over me it would be impossible to describe.  But it sprang from the expression on her face of that absolute freedom from all self-consciousness which is the great charm in children, combined with the grace and beauty of her own matchless girlhood.  A desire to embrace her, to crush her to my breast, seized me like a frenzy.

‘Winifred,’ I said, ‘you are very cold.’

But she was now insensible to sound.  I knew from experience now that I must shake her to bring her back to consciousness, for evidently, in her fits of reverie, the sounds falling upon her ear were not conveyed to the brain at all.

I shook her gently, and said, ‘The Prince of the Mist.’

She started back to life.  My idea had been a happy one.  My words had at once sent her thoughts into the right direction for me.

‘Pardon me, Prince,’ said she, smiling; ’I had forgotten that you were here.’

‘Winifred, I’ve warmed this hand, now give me the other.’

She stretched her other hand across her breast and gave it to me.  This brought her entire body close to me, and I said, ’Winnie, you are cold all over.  Won’t you let the Prince of the Mist put his arms round you and warm you?’

‘Oh, I should like it so much,’ she said.  ’But are you warm, Prince? are you really warm?—­your mist is mostly very cold.’