A little while before he had been deceived by the Alder-maiden, and
had given her his love in error. This has taken some of the old joy
out of his heart, but he has made his escape from her, and thinks
he has learned his lesson.

But he comes at last to the long low house in the clearing; he
finds within it an ancient woman reading out of an old volume; he
enters, he examines the room in which she sits, and yielding to
curiosity, he opens the door of the great cupboard in the corner,
in spite of a muttered warning. He thinks, on first opening it,
that it is just a dark cupboard; but he sees with a shock of
surprise that he is looking into a long dark passage, which leads
out, far away from where he stands, into the starlit night. Then a
figure, which seems to have been running from a long distance,
turns the corner, and comes speeding down towards him. He has not
time to close the door, but stands aside to let it pass; it passes,
and slips behind him; and soon he sees that it is a shadow of
himself, which has fallen on the floor at his feet. He asks what
has happened, and then the old woman says that he has found his
shadow, a thing which happens to many people; and then for the
first time she raises her head and looks at him, and he sees that
her mouth is full of long white teeth; he knows where he is at
last, and stumbles out, with the dark shadow at his heels, which is
to haunt him so miserably for many a sad day.

That is a very fine and true similitude of what befalls many men
and women. They go astray, they give up some precious thing--their
innocence perhaps--to a deluding temptation. They are delivered for
a time; and then a little while after they find their shadow, which
no tears or anguish of regret can take away, till the healing of