And when the Princess was quite old, and the tear pearls that had been swept up by the Cat filled seven big chests in the back-kitchen, the Princess fell ill. 'I think I am going to die,' she said to the Cat, 'and I am not really at all sorry except for you. I think you'll miss me. Tell me now--it's almost all over--who are you, really?' 'I give it up,' said the Cat as usual. 'Ask another.' But the Princess asked nothing more. She lay on her bed in her white gown and waited for death, for she was very tired of being alive. Only she said: 'Put out that lamp in the window; it hurts my eyes.' For even then she thought of the poor men whose ships might be wrecked just because they didn't happen to be the one and only King with whom she could be happy. So the Cat took the lamp away, but she did not put it out; she set it in the window of the parlour, and its light shone out over the black waters of the Perilous Sea. And that very night the one and only King--who in all these years had never ceased to follow the leading of the dreams the Cat whispered in his ear--came in the black darkness sailing over the Perilous Sea. And in the black darkness he saw at last the bright white light that his dreams had promised, and he knew that where the light was his Princess was, and his heart leaped up, and he bade the helmsmen steer for the light. And for the light they steered. And because he was the only possible King to mate that Princess, the helmsman found the only possible passage among the rocks, and the ship anchored safely in a little quiet creek, and the King landed and went up to the door of the tower and knocked. 'Who's there?' said the Cat. 'Me,' said the King, just as you or I might have done. 'You're late,' said the Cat. 'I'm afraid you've lost your chance.' 'I took the first chance I got,' said the King. 'Let me in, and let me see her.' He had been so busy all these years trying to find the bright white light of his dreams that he had not noticed that his hair had gone gray long ago. So the Cat let him in, and led him up the winding stair to the room where the Princess, very quiet, lay on her white bed waiting for death to come, for she was very tired. The old King stumbled across the bar of moonlight on the floor, flung down a clanking wallet, and knelt by the bed in the deep shadow, saying: 'Oh, my dear own Princess, I have come at last.' 'Is it really you?' she said, and gave him her hands in the shadow. I hoped it was Death's foot-step I heard coming up the winding stair.' 'Oh, did you hope for death,' he cried, 'while I was coming to you?' 'You were long in coming,' said she, 'and I was very tired.' 'My beautiful dear Princess,' he said, 'you shall rest in my arms till you are not tired any more.' 'My beautiful King,' she said, 'I am not tired any more now.' And then the Cat came in with the lamp, and they looked in each other's eyes.