darker shadow of the sandhills.

Suddenly, cresting the heavy, sandy pass, Ursula lifted her
head, and shrank back, momentarily frightened. There was a great
whiteness confronting her, the moon was incandescent as a round
furnace door, out of which came the high blast of moonlight,
over the seaward half of the world, a dazzling, terrifying glare
of white light. They shrank back for a moment into shadow,
uttering a cry. He felt his chest laid bare, where the secret
was heavily hidden. He felt himself fusing down to nothingness,
like a bead that rapidly disappears in an incandescent
flame.

"How wonderful!" cried Ursula, in low, calling tones. "How
wonderful!"

And she went forward, plunging into it. He followed behind.
She too seemed to melt into the glare, towards the moon.

The sands were as ground silver, the sea moved in solid
brightness, coming towards them, and she went to meet the
advance of the flashing, buoyant water. [She gave her breast
to the moon, her belly to the flashing, heaving water.] He stood
behind, encompassed, a shadow ever dissolving.

She stood on the edge of the water, at the edge of the solid,
flashing body of the sea, and the wave rushed over her feet.

"I want to go," she cried, in a strong, dominant voice. "I
want to go."

He saw the moonlight on her face, so she was like metal, he
heard her ringing, metallic voice, like the voice of a harpy to
him.

She prowled, ranging on the edge of the water like a
possessed creature, and he followed her. He saw the froth of the
wave followed by the hard, bright water swirl over her feet and
her ankles, she swung out her arms, to balance, he expected
every moment to see her walk into the sea, dressed as she was,
and be carried swimming out.

But she turned, she walked to him.

"I want to go," she cried again, in the high, hard voice,
like the scream of gulls.

"Where?" he asked.

"I don't know."

And she seized hold of his arm, held him fast, as if captive,
and walked him a little way by the edge of the dazzling, dazing
water.

Then there in the great flare of light, she clinched hold of
him, hard, as if suddenly she had the strength of destruction,
she fastened her arms round him and tightened him in her grip,
whilst her mouth sought his in a hard, rending, ever-increasing
kiss, till his body was powerless in her grip, his heart melted
in fear from the fierce, beaked, harpy's kiss. The water washed
again over their feet, but she