the earth like ground-ivy or climbed the wall like a creeper.  Through an orchard piebald with moonbeams and shadow, and a gate, glaring as with new white paint, set in a lichen-grey hedge, they passed out on the grizzled hillside.  He did not take her down the path by which she and Marion had gone on to the marshes the previous afternoon, but plunged forward into the short grey fur of the moonlit field, where there was no path, and led her up in a slanting course towards the top of the elm-hedge that striped the hill.  It was rough walking over the steep frozen hummocks, and she wished he would not walk so fast.  But it was lovely going up like this, and with every step widening the wide, whitely-blazing view.  The elm trees stood like chased toys made by silversmiths where the light struck them; and in the darkness seemed like harsh twiggy nets hung on tall poles to catch the stars.  Scattered over the polished harbour, the black boats squatted on their shadows and the tide licked towards them with an ebony and silver tongue.  But far out in the fairway a liner and some lesser steamers carried their spilling cargo of orange brightness, and the further fringe of the night was spoiled by the comprehensive yellow wink of a lighthouse; and these things tainted the black and white immaculacy of the hour.  It was not on earth but overhead that the essence of the night displayed itself.  Light rushed from the moon into the sky like a strong wind, carrying before it some shining vapours that might have been angels’ clouts blown off a heavenly line.  It was as if some horseplay was going on among the ethereal forces; for the stars, dimmed by the violent brilliance of the moon, were like tapers seen through glass, and were held, perhaps, by invisible beings who had been drawn to their windows by the sound of carnival.  To its zenith the night was packed with gaiety.

“Richard, Richard, is it not beautiful?” she cried.

“Yes, yes,” he answered.

They reached the topmost elm in the row, and opened a gate into a field which stretched inland from the hill’s brow.  Under the shadow of its seaward edge they still walked westerly, the ploughed earth looking like a patch of grey corduroy lying to their right.  It struck her that he was moving now like a hunter stalking his quarry, as if the lightness of his feet were a weapon, as if he were looking forward to an exciting kill.  At the corner of the field they stopped before a gap in the hedge.  Triple barbed wire crossed a vista of close-cropped grass running to trees that lifted dark spires against the pale meridian starlight.

“Wait,” said Richard.

He went forward and stamped down the long grasses at one side of the gap, and then bent nearly double and seemed to be pressing against something with his hands and his knee.  The barbed wire began to hum, to buzz excitedly; there was the groan of cracking wood, and the grunt of his deep, straining breath.  She found herself running her hands over her face and down her body and thinking, “Since he is like that, and I am like this, all will be well.”  That was quite meaningless; it must be true that one of the moon’s rays was unreason.  The barbed wire danced and fell to the ground, singing angrily.  Richard had broken in two the stake which supported it.