She had already risen, as she had got over any tendency to faint, but she had no intention of leaving him to his fate. She had just seen in a pocket of his leather apron those big garden-shears which she had noticed him plying with such marked incompetence, and it occurred to her suddenly that they might be of some real service now. She ran up and, watching her opportunity, succeeded in whipping them out. Then she stepped behind the serpent, and forced the blades together just below the part of its neck that was in her champion's grasp. There was a highly unpleasant scrunch and jar as they closed, but she pressed with all her strength, until the reptile's spine was cut through and its body uncoiled itself from the young man and went writhing and rolling blindly through the grass. Daphne dropped the shears and got out of its way in sudden panic. "It's not dead! I'm sure it isn't!" she cried to the stranger, whom she had somehow ceased to think of as a spy. "It is harmless enough now, fair lady," he said as he tossed its crested head into the undergrowth, "thanks to your courage." "I never killed anything before," she said. "I hated doing it, and--it seems such a silly way to kill a snake!" "It succeeded," he said, wondering how those small slim hands could have had the strength. "I could not have held it much longer. You have saved my life." "I couldn't have," she said, "if you hadn't saved mine first. I know now that you have only been watching and following me about as you have to see that I didn't get into any danger?" "So you were aware that I watched you?" he said. Daphne laughed. "How could I help being?" she replied. "And of course I guessed at once that you weren't a real gardener." "What makes you suppose that?" he said. "Well," she said, laughing again, "I happen to have seen you at work, you know." "I may have little skill," he said, "nevertheless, I have obtained employment here as a gardener." "I mustn't ask you questions," she said, "but I'm quite sure that, before you came here, you were in a very different position from any labourer's." She had noticed a refinement in his speech and manner, and also the shapeliness of his hands, which the Fairy had been considerate or forgetful enough to leave unaltered. But Daphne's words gave him a sudden hope. Had she detected that he was a Prince? If so, he was released from his promise of silence! "All I may tell you," he said, "is that there were reasons which obliged me to leave my own country and live here where I am unknown. But I think you have guessed more than that already!"