The moon would not rise till ten!  And all things waited.  The creatures of night were slow to come forth after that long bright summer’s day, watching for the shades of the trees to sink deeper and deeper into the now chalk-white water; watching for the chalk-white face of the sky to be masked with velvet.  The very black-plumed trees themselves seemed to wait in suspense for the grape-bloom of night.  All things stared, wan in that hour of pass ing day—­all things had eyes wistful and unblessed.  In those moments glamour was so dead that it was as if meaning had abandoned the earth.  But not for long.  Winged with darkness, it stole back; not the soul of meaning that had gone, but a witch-like and brooding spirit harbouring in the black trees, in the high dark spears of the rushes, and on the grim-snouted snags that lurked along the river bank.  Then the owls came out, and night-flying things.  And in the wood there began a cruel bird-tragedy—­some dark pursuit in the twilight above the bracken; the piercing shrieks of a creature into whom talons have again and again gone home; and mingled with them, hoarse raging cries of triumph.  Many minutes they lasted, those noises of the night, sound-emblems of all the cruelty in the heart of Nature; till at last death appeased that savagery.  And any soul abroad, that pitied fugitives, might once more listen, and not weep. . . .

Then a nightingale began to give forth its long liquid gurgling; and a corn-crake churred in the young wheat.  Again the night brooded, in the silent tops of the trees, in the more silent depths of the water.  It sent out at long intervals a sigh or murmur, a tiny scuttling splash, an owl’s hunting cry.  And its breath was still hot and charged with heavy odour, for no dew was falling. . . .

XXI

It was past ten when they came out from the wood.  She had wanted to wait for the moon to rise; not a gold coin of a moon as last night, but ivory pale, and with a gleaming radiance level over the fern, and covering the lower boughs, as it were, with a drift of white blossom.

Through the wicket gate they passed once more beside the moon-coloured wheat, which seemed of a different world from that world in which they had walked but an hour and a half ago.

And in Lennan’s heart was a feeling such as a man’s heart can only know once in all his life—­such humble gratitude, and praise, and adoration of her who had given him her all.  There should be nothing for her now but joy—­like the joy of this last hour.  She should never know less happiness!  And kneeling down before her at the water’s edge he kissed her dress, and hands, and feet, which to-morrow would be his forever.

Then they got into the boat.

The smile of the moonlight glided over each ripple, and reed, and closing water-lily; over her face, where the hood had fallen back from her loosened hair; over one hand trailing the water, and the other touching the flower at her breast; and, just above her breath, she said: