‘Come with me, come with me,’ spoke those trembling tones, and at every step the Prince’s cheeks burnt hotter and hotter and his blood coursed more rapidly.

‘I must go,’ he said, ’it is no sin; I must see her asleep; nothing will be lost if I do not kiss her, and that I will not do.  My will is strong.’

The Fairy dropped her shimmering garment, drew back the branches, and a moment after was hidden within their depths.

‘I have not sinned yet!’ said the Prince, ‘nor will I’; then he drew back the branches.  There she lay asleep already, beautiful as only the Fairy in the Garden of Paradise can be.  She smiled in her dreams; he bent over her and saw the tears welling up under her eyelashes.

[Illustration:  The Fairy dropped her shimmering garment, drew back the branches, and a moment after was hidden within their depths.]

‘Do you weep for me?’ he whispered.  ’Weep not, beautiful maiden.  I only now understand the full bliss of Paradise; it surges through my blood and through my thoughts.  I feel the strength of the angels and of everlasting life in my mortal limbs!  If it were to be everlasting night to me, a moment like this were worth it!’ and he kissed away the tears from her eyes; his mouth touched hers.

Then came a sound like thunder, louder and more awful than any he had ever heard before, and everything around collapsed.  The beautiful Fairy, the flowery Paradise sank deeper and deeper.  The Prince saw it sink into the darkness of night; it shone far off like a little tiny twinkling star.  The chill of death crept over his limbs; he closed his eyes and lay long as if dead.

The cold rain fell on his face, and the sharp wind blew around his head, and at last his memory came back.  ‘What have I done?’ he sighed.  ’I have sinned like Adam, sinned so heavily that Paradise has sunk low beneath the earth!’ And he opened his eyes; he could still see the star, the far-away star, which twinkled like Paradise; it was the morning star in the sky.  He got up and found himself in the wood near the cave of the winds, and the mother of the winds sat by his side.  She looked angry and raised her hand.

‘So soon as the first evening!’ she said.  ’I thought as much; if you were my boy, you should go into the bag!’

‘Ah, he shall soon go there!’ said Death.  He was a strong old man, with a scythe in his hand and great black wings.  ’He shall be laid in a coffin, but not now; I only mark him and then leave him for a time to wander about on the earth to expiate his sin and to grow better.  I will come some time.  When he least expects me, I shall come back, lay him in a black coffin, put it on my head, and fly to the skies.  The Garden of Paradise blooms there too, and if he is good and holy he shall enter into it; but if his thoughts are wicked and his heart still full of sin, he will sink deeper in his coffin than Paradise sank, and I shall only go once in every thousand years to see if he is to sink deeper or to rise to the stars, the twinkling stars up there.’