134 Lily and Water-Lily.

“See, take this little pipe,” continued she, bending
over him where he lay. “It is a reed cut from thine
own river, and it is the voice that binds my world to
thine. What thou speakest into it shall I understand
better than if thou wert by me. And when thus
thou callest me I will come.”

Michael stretched out his hand to take the pipe,
and, as he took it, it seemed to him that the lithe
fingers that closed over his were chill and wet as with
trickling water, and as he gazed into Nerina’s liquid
dark eyes they became green again and transparent
as the water where he had first seen her, until her
whole lovely self seemed to fade and become more
and more transparent too, and at last there was
nothing left but the little fairy figure through which
the moonlight shone, and from whence the silvered
drops fell like diamonds. And, lo! around him there
was nothing but the marsh with the white mists
wreathed upon it, and the many winding, creeping,
rushing streams of the Rhéne making for the lake,
He was lying upon his face on the slippery wet bank,
and stretching out his arms over the water.