"Before you saw her?"

"I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere
to be seen."

So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long
grotto, seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate
place athwart which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro.
And about him elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes
came out of the cave after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting
it after him, shouting, "Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and
fairy gold!"

And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over,
and he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly
set himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern,
through a place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly
and often. The elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him
and pricking him, and the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him
and dashed into his face, and the gnomes pursued him shouting and
pelting him with fairy gold. As he ran with all this strange rout
about him and distracting him, suddenly he was knee-deep in a swamp,
and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted roots, and he caught his foot
in one and stumbled and fell. . . .

He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself
sprawling upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars.

He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff
and cold, and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor