on tip-toe down the
stairs.

In the glimmering starshine Pauline could see Guy standing by the wicket
in the high gray wall, a remote and spectral form against the blackness
all around him, where the invisible trees gathered and hoarded the
gloom. She sighed with relief to find that the arms with which so gently
he enfolded her were indeed warm with life. Her passage over the lawn
had been one long increasing fear that the shape, so indeterminate and
motionless, that awaited her approach, might not be Guy in life, but a
wan image of what he had been, a demon lover, a shadow from the cave of
death.

"Guy, my darling, my darling, it is you! Oh, I was so frightened that
when I came close you wouldn't really be there."

She leaned half sobbing upon his shoulder.

"Pauline, don't talk so loud. I only did not come across the lawn to
meet you for fear of attracting attention."

"Let me go back now," she begged, "now that I've seen you."

But Guy soon persuaded her to come with him through the wicket and out
over the paddock where the grass whispered in their track, until at the
sight of the canoe's outline she lost her fears and did not care how
recklessly she explored the deeps of the night.

In silence they traveled up-stream under the vaulted willows; under the
giant sycamore whose great roots came writhing out of the darkness above
the sheen of the water; under Wychford bridge whose cold breath dripped
down in icy beads upon the thick swirl beneath; and then out through
starshine across the mill-pool. Pauline held her breath while around
their course was a sound of water sucking at the vegetation, gurgling
and lapping and chuckling against the invisible banks.

"The Abbey stream?" murmured Guy.

She scarcely breathed her consent, and the canoe tore the growing sedge
like satin as it bumped against the slope of the bank. Pauline felt that
she was protesting with her real self against the part she was playing
in this dream; but the dream became too potent, and she had to help Guy
to push the canoe up through the grass and down again into the quiet
water beyond. It was much blacker here on account of the overhanging
beeches, but continually Pauline strained through the darkness for a
sight of the deserted house, the windows of which seemed to follow with
blank and bony gaze their progress.

"Guy, let's hurry, for I can see the Abbey in the starlight," she
exclaimed.

"You have better eyes than mine if you can,"