dder, into comments on the character of the
congregation the Sunday before, in the midst of which the rector was
called away to the telephone. Sally Grover had promised to let him know
whether or not they had found Kate Marcy, and his face was grave when he
returned . . . . He was still preoccupied, an hour later, when Alison
arose to go.

"But your carriage isn't here," said Phil, going to the window.

"Oh, I preferred to, walk," she told him, "it isn't far."

III

A blood-red October moon shed the fulness of its light on the silent
houses, and the trees, still clinging to leaf, cast black shadows across
the lawns and deserted streets. The very echoes of their footsteps on
the pavement seemed to enhance the unreality of their surroundings: Some
of the residences were already closed for the night, although the hour
was not late, and the glow behind the blinds of the others was nullified
by the radiancy from above. To Hodder, the sense of their isolation had
never been more complete.

Alison, while repudiating the notion that an escort were needed in a
neighbourhood of such propriety and peace, had not refused his offer to
accompany her. And Hodder felt instinctively, as he took his place
beside her, a sense of climax. This situation, like those of the past,
was not of his own making. It was here; confronting him, and a certain
inevitable intoxication at being once, more alone with her prevented him
from forming any policy with which to deal with it. He might either
trust himself, or else he might not. And as she said, the distance was
not great. But he could not help wondering, during those first moments
of silence, whether she comprehended the strength of the temptation to
which she subjected him . . . .

The night was warm. She wore a coat, which was open, and from time to
time he caught the gleam of the moonlight on the knotted pearls at her
throat. Over her head she had flung, mantilla-like, a black lace scarf,
the effect of which was, in the soft luminosity encircling her, to add to
the quality of mystery never exhausted. If by acquiescing in his company
she had owned to a tie between them, the lace shawl falling over the
tails of her dark hair and framing in its folds her face, had somehow
made her once more a stranger. Nor was it until she presently looked up
into his face with a smile that this impression was, if not at once
wholly dissipated, at least contradicted.

Her question, indeed, was intimat