Deb flung both leaves wide—­like all the Redford doors, they were never locked or barred—­and drifting over the verandah, sat down on the edge of it, with her feet on the gravel.  She had tossed off her pearl necklace and a breast-knot of wilted roses; otherwise, she sat in full evening dress, and the night air bathed her bare neck and arms.  Also the mosquitoes found them—­a delicious morsel!—­so that she had to turn her lacy skirt up over her head to be quite comfortable.  From under this hood the dark lamps of her eyes shone forth, gazing steadily into the dim world—­into the bit of future that she thought she saw unveiled.  The loom of the trees, the glimmer of flowering bushes, the open spaces of lawn and pallid pathways, the translucent blue-green sky, the rising moon—­these things made the picture, but were to all intents invisible to the inward sight.  She really saw nothing, until suddenly a pin-point spark appeared out of the shadows, moved along a hedge of laurels, and fixed itself in the neighbourhood of a distant garden-seat.  Then at once she stiffened like a cat that has heard a mouse squeak or a bird’s wing rustle; she was alert on the instant, concentrated upon the phenomenon.  Instinct recognised the tip of a cigar which had the handsome face of Claud Dalzell behind it.

“What is he doing out of doors at this time of night?” she wondered; and the little star began to draw her like a magnet.  The world becomes another world in these mystic hours; it has new rulers and new laws—­ or rather, it has none.  The moon sways more than ocean tides.  In broad day Deb would no more have stalked a man than she would a crocodile; in this soft, free, empty, irresponsible night the primal woman was out of her husk, one with the desert-prowling animal that calls through the moonlit silence for its mate.  Twenty times had she snubbed an ardent lover at the behest of all sorts of reasons and so-called instincts cultivated for her guidance by generations of wise men, now, all in a moment, came this moon-born impulse to give herself to him unasked.  She could not resist it.

Like Deb, Claud had not been inclined to sleep, and for much the same reason.  The guest chamber usually allotted to him being needed for a lady, he had been sent to the bachelors’ quarters—­a barrack-like dormitory amongst the outbuildings, very useful for the accommodation of the occasional ‘vet’ or cattle-buyer, and to take the overflow of company on festive occasions.  Jim Urquhart, when at Redford, always slept there; he preferred it, particularly when he had companions with whom to smoke and talk sheep, and perhaps play cards, at liberty; for the bachelors’ quarters had its own wood-stack and supplies, and one could sit by a blazing hearth all night, if so disposed, without incommoding anybody.

Generally four bachelor beds were made up, and a screened end of the room stacked with the material for twice as many more.  At Christmas all were in use, and lined the two long walls—­which Dalzell called “herding”, and disliked extremely, while recognising that it was a necessary arrangement to which it was his duty to conform.