t
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:

"Row, my dear love; it's late!"

Dipping his sculls, he shot the skiff into the darkness of the backwater.
. . .

What happened then he never knew, never clearly--in all those after
years. A vision of her white form risen to its feet, bending forward
like a creature caught, that cannot tell which way to spring; a crashing
shock, his head striking something hard! Nothingness! And then--an
awful, awful struggle with roots and weeds and slime, a desperate agony
of groping in that pitchy blackness, among tree-stumps, in dead water
that seemed to have no bottom--he and that other, who had leaped at them
in the dark with his boat, like a murdering beast; a nightmare search
more horrible than words could tell, till in a patch of