er,
something strong and blind and ruthless in its primitiveness, made the
hour almost terrible to her. She knew how stark and alone he was, and
she felt it was great that he came to her; and she took him simply
because his need was bigger either than her or him, and her soul was
still within her. She did this for him in his need, even if he left her,
for she loved him.

All the while the peewits were screaming in the field. When he came to,
he wondered what was near his eyes, curving and strong with life in the
dark, and what voice it was speaking. Then he realised it was the grass,
and the peewit was calling. The warmth was Clara's breathing heaving.
He lifted his head, and looked into her eyes. They were dark and shining
and strange, life wild at the source staring into his life, stranger to
him, yet meeting him; and he put his face down on her throat, afraid.
What was she? A strong, strange, wild life, that breathed with his
in the darkness through this hour. It was all so much bigger than
themselves that he was hushed. They had met, and included in their
meeting the thrust of the manifold grass stems, the cry of the peewit,
the wheel of the stars.

When they stood up they saw other lovers stealing down the opposite
hedge. It seemed natural they were there; the night contained them.

And after such an evening they both were very still, having known
the immensity of passion. They felt small, half-afraid, childish and
wondering, like Adam and Eve when they lost their innocence and realised
the magnificence of the power which drove them out of Paradise and
across the great night and the great day of humanity. It was for each of
them an initiation and a satisfaction. To know their own nothingness,
to know the tremendous living flood which carried them always, gave them
rest within themselves. If so great a magnificent power could overwhelm
them, identify them altogether with itself, so that they knew they were
only grains in the tremendous heave that lifted every grass blade its
little height, and every tree, and living thing, then why fret about
themselves? They could let themselves be carried by life, and they felt
a sort of peace each in the other. There was a verification which they
had had together. Nothing could nullify it, nothing could take it away;
it was almost their belief in life.

But Clara was not satisfied. Something great was there, she knew;
something great enveloped her. But it did not keep her. In