of the lamp,
and he was loving it all the time? And what if the lamp did not mean to
hurt her, only could not help it? The red tips looked as if the flower
had some time or other been hurt: what if the lamp was making the best
it could of her--opening her out somehow like the flower? She would bear
it patiently, and see. But how coarse the color of the grass was!
Perhaps, however, her eyes not being made for the bright lamp, she did
not see them as they were! Then she remembered how different were the
eyes of the creature that was not a girl, and was afraid of the
darkness! Ah, if the darkness would only come again, all arms, friendly
and soft everywhere about her!

She lay so still that Watho thought she had fainted. She was pretty sure
she would be dead before the night came to revive her.

XVIII.--REFUGE.

Fixing her telescope on the motionless form, that she might see it at
once when the morning came, Watho went down from the tower to Photogen's
room. He was much better by this time, and before she left him he had
resolved to leave the castle that very night.

The darkness was terrible indeed, but Watho was worse than even the
darkness, and he could not escape in the day. As soon, therefore, as the
house seemed still, he tightened his belt, hung to it his hunting knife,
put a flask of wine and some bread in his pocket, and took his bow and
arrows. He got from the house, and made his way at once up to the plain.
But what with his illness, the terrors of the night, and his dread of
the wild beasts, when he got to the level he could not walk a step
farther, and sat down, thinking it better to die than to live. In spite
of his fears, however, sleep contrived to overcome him, and he fell at
full length on the soft grass.

He had not slept long when he woke with such a strange sense of comfort
and security that he thought the dawn at least must have arrived. But it
was dark night about him. And the sky--no, it was not the sky, but the
blue eyes of his naiad looking down upon him! Once more he lay with his
head in her lap, and all was well, for plainly the girl feared the
darkness as little as he the day.

"Thank you," he said. "You are like live armor to my heart; you keep the
fear off me. I have been very ill since then. Did you come up out of the
river when you saw me cross?"

"I don't live in the water," she answered. "I live under the pale lamp,
and I die under the bright one."

"Ah, yes! I understand now