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.'

'Quite warm, Winifred,' I said, as with my heart swelling in my
breast, and with eyelids closing over my eyes from very joy, I drew
her softly upon my breast once more.