"He must be binding the faggots together," she said to herself, and went on until she came to the clearing where he should have been at work; but there he was not. The light came down the valley duskily through the mist; it gleamed upon the stream and glimmered on the white ends of the newly chopped faggots that were neatly bound together with withies. "He must have gone further on," she said to herself, and ran quite swiftly up the steep path that climbed into the heart of the mountains. The falling of the night frightened her a little, and she was anxious to find him. Up and up the rocky path went, whilst the stream foamed down beside it, and at last she saw him in a slant of light that came down a west-facing valley. He was crossing the stream just above where it thundered over a great boulder. There was a bridge across the torrent, but it was only a tree-trunk, and he preferred, in his blindness, to cross on the stream bottom, over the boulders with the aid of a good staff. The water foamed up to his knees. She came as close to the water’s edge as she could, and called— "Why, where are you going to?" In spite of the roaring of the waters he heard her and turned. "Who are you?" he asked And she answered, "I am Eldrida." And in a moment, with a great splashing of the black water, he was at her side. "I thought you had gone for good," he said. "And so I worked as long as I felt able to; but just now it was all so silent and so dreadfully lonely, that I could not stand it, and I was about to set out to search for you through the world." "What all alone, and blind?" she said. And he answered, "Yes, since you were gone I was alone and blind; but if I had found you I should not have been alone, and hardly blind at all." She put the horn into his hand, and said, "Drink this." "Why, what is it?" she asked. "It is what I went to fetch," she said; "drink it and see." The light was shining on his face as he raised it to his mouth and drank it off, and suddenly there came into his eyes a look of great joy. "Why," he said, "I can see!" and in a moment he had thrown his arms round her and drew her tightly to him. "I love you more than all the world!" he said. "Do you love me?" She seemed to have forgotten all about the elixir, for instead of saying, "Don’t be ridiculous!" she just said, "Yes, I love you very much." And the stream roared on over the great boulder and whirled back over the rocky shallows, and the shadows in the valleys grew darker and darker; but they both had a great deal to say, though, as a matter of fact, it might most of it have been said with three words and a kiss. But, you see, they preferred to do it in another way; at least, as far as the speaking went—in my experience, there is only one way of kissing. "So you see, I shan’t be able to fly away any more," she said, after she had related her story, "because the poor wind-flower crown is all boiled."