A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris. She
sprang to her feet to follow it, not in the spirit of the hunter, but of
the lover. Her heart--like every heart, if only its fallen sides were
cleared away--was an inexhaustible fountain of love: she loved
everything she saw. But as she followed the moth, she caught sight of
something lying on the bank of the river, and not yet having learned to
be afraid of anything, ran straight to see what it was. Reaching it, she
stood amazed. Another girl like herself! But what a strange-looking
girl!--so curiously dressed, too!--and not able to move! Was she dead?
Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, lifted Photogen's head, laid it
on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her warm hands brought him to
himself. He opened his black eyes, out of which had gone all the fire,
and looked up with a strange sound of fear--half moan, half gasp. But
when he saw her face he drew a deep breath, and lay motionless--gazing
at her: those blue marvels above him, like a better sky, seemed to side
with courage and assuage his terror. At length, in a trembling, awed
voice, and a half-whisper, he said, "Who are you?"
"I am Nycteris," she answered.
"You are a creature of the darkness, and love the night," he said, his
fear beginning to move again.
"I may be a creature of the darkness," she replied. "I hardly know what
you mean. But I do not love the night. I love the day--with all my
heart; and I sleep all the night long."
"How can that be?" said Photogen, rising on his elbow, but dropping his
head on her lap again the moment he saw the moon--"how can it be," he
repeated, "when I see your eyes there wide-awake?"
She only smiled and stroked him, for she did not understand him, and
thought he did not know what he was saying.
"Was it a dream, then?" resumed Photogen, rubbing his eyes. But with
that his memory came clear, and he shuddered, and cried, "Oh, horrible!
horrible! to be turned all at once into a coward!--a shameful,
contemptible, disgraceful coward! I am ashamed--ashamed--and _so_
frightened! It is all so frightful!"
[TO BE CONTINUED.]