He turned up from the water among the trees, where the incense of the may-flowers hung heavy in the air.

‘Never look for a thing!’ he thought, and stopped to listen.  It was so breathless that the leaves of a low bough against his cheek did not stir while he stood there.  Presently he heard faint sounds, and stole towards them.  Under a beech-tree he almost stumbled over Thyme, lying with her face pressed to the ground.  The young doctor’s heart gave a sickening leap; he quickly knelt down beside her.  The girl’s body, pressed close to the dry beech-mat, was being shaken by long sobs.  From head to foot it quivered; her hat had been torn off, and the fragrance of her hair mingled with the fragrance of the night.  In Martin’s heart something seemed to turn over and over, as when a boy he had watched a rabbit caught in a snare.  He touched her.  She sat up, and, dashing her hand across her eyes, cried:  “Go away!  Oh, go away!”

He put his arm round her and waited.  Five minutes passed.  The air was trembling with a sort of pale vibration, for the moonlight had found a hole in the dark foliage and flooded on to the ground beside them, whitening the black beech-husks.  Some tiny bird, disturbed by these unwonted visitors, began chirruping and fluttering, but was soon still again.  To Martin, so strangely close to this young creature in the night, there came a sense of utter disturbance.

‘Poor little thing!’ he thought; ‘be careful of her, comfort her!’ Hardness seemed so broken out of her, and the night so wonderful!  And there came into the young man’s heart a throb of the knowledge—­very rare with him, for he was not, like Hilary, a philosophising person—­that she was as real as himself—­suffering, hoping, feeling, not his hopes and feelings, but her own.  His fingers kept pressing her shoulder through her thin blouse.  And the touch of those fingers was worth more than any words, as this night, all moonlit dreams, was worth more than a thousand nights of sane reality.

Thyme twisted herself away from him at last.  “I can’t,” she sobbed.  “I’m not what you thought me—­I’m not made for it!”

A scornful little smile curled Martin’s lip.  So that was it!  But the smile soon died away.  One did not hit what was already down!

Thyme’s voice wailed through the silence.  “I thought I could—­but I want beautiful things.  I can’t bear it all so grey and horrible.  I’m not like that girl.  I’m-an-amateur!”

‘If I kissed her—–­’ Martin thought.

She sank down again, burying her face in the dark beech-mat.  The moonlight had passed on.  Her voice came faint and stiffed, as out of the tomb of faith.  “I’m no good.  I never shall be.  I’m as bad as mother!”

But to Martin there was only the scent of her hair.

“No,” murmured Thyme’s voice, “I’m only fit for miserable Art....  I’m only fit for—­nothing!”

They were so close together on the dark beech mat that their bodies touched, and a longing to clasp her in his arms came over him.