“Death!” laughed Micheline, “we fairies have no fear of death. See, it will do me no hurt!” And so saying she stabbed herself in reckless frolic. But as she did so she grew white to the lips, and sank upon her knees.
“Ah, the waters of my baptism!” she cried out, “they have stolen my immortality from me!” And she fell lifeless to the ground.
At that the spell was broken, and the prince and the weaver resumed their proper shapes. Then once more the prince’s sword flashed from out its sheath.
“I have nothing to fear from the rest of you!” he cried, “therefore now, O fairy king, yield up your crown, for my lady will know no rest till it is hers!”
Then the king stepped forward, smiling strangely, and set his crown upon the brow of the princess. But even as he did so it turned all to withered leaves, which lightly kissed her waving hair and then fluttered to the ground.
“See, my beloved,” said the prince, “this fairy gold is not for us. At the touch of a mortal it decays, therefore cease from your desire.”
“It was but an idle dream,” said she, “love is the better diadem.”
Then they turned and looked again upon the greensward, but the king and his court were gone, and from far away, borne to them fitfully upon the nightwind, there came a sound which none had ever heard before, of fairies keening their dead.
Now that same night, when the fields lay grey in the moonlight, and the shadows were long between the haycocks, the widow woman sat in her lonely cabin, and it seemed to her that she heard a tapping at the window. So she went and looked, and there stood the fairy nurse beside the sill.
“Micheline is dead,” said she, “and will return no more, neither to you nor to me. Go back to your spinning and forget her.” So saying she moved away, and passed in and out among the haycocks till she was lost to sight.