Such relief came with the sight of her face, after this monstrous vision, that he saw the face flash on him as a sword might flash out of darkness when light catches its blade.
Then she was gone, and he saw the form of her head in the water while she swam swiftly across the silver track of the moonbeams and out into the darkness beyond.
Caius looked around him with senses still drowsy and head aching sorely.
He was in no fairy region that might be the home of mermaids, but on the bit of beach from which he had launched himself into the water.

His coat and hat lay near him, and just above the spot where he lay was the rude epitaph of baby Day, carved by his own boyish hand so long ago.
Caius put his hand to his head, and found it badly bruised on one side.
His heart was bruised, too, partly by the sight of the monstrous body of the lovely sea-child, partly by the fresh experience of his own weakness and incapacity.
It was long before he dragged himself home.

It seemed to him to be days before he recovered from the weariness of that secret adventure, and he bore the mark of the bruise on his head for many a day.

The mermaid he never saw again..