She went out of the room, into gold deeps of light and the evening shadows. * * * * * She came back into her own garden. The sinking sun flooded the lawn. Its radiance was slit with long narrow shades, and the great chestnut trees piled themselves above it in massed somnolence. The roses were open to the very heart, fainting in their own fragrance; and around them the dim lavender-hedges still bore white butterflies upon their spear-tips. The weeping beech flowed downwards, a full green fountain, whispering silkily. Forms, lights, colours vibrated, burned, ached, leapt with excess of life. The house was wide open at every door and window; and Mamma, going up the steps with a basket of flowers, paused and drew up the striped Venetian blind. 3 For hours, it seemed, they had not spoken a word. The paddle fell now and again upon the water with a light musical clash, like the sound of the shattering of thinnest crystal. Now and again the moving blade woke the water to a rich and secret murmur; as if a voice half woke out of sleep to speak a tender word; then swooned into sleep again. She saw his arm move and glimmer; his form was just discernible in the stern of the boat, shoulders bowed forward, head motionless. Once or twice he started to whistle a fragment of tune, and then was silent again. She lay among cushions in the bows, and watched the dark yellow moon rise, bare of clouds, behind the poplar trees. The night was heavy and still. The canoe slipped down towards the islands. Then she would move, if her limbs still remembered how to move: he would give her a hand to help her out and they would stand among the little willows and whisper together. Mamma was fast asleep at home, her alien spirit lapped in unconsciousness. Her dreams would not divine that her daughter had stolen out to meet a lover. And next door also they slept unawares, while one of them broke from the circle and came alone to clasp a stranger. The boat hissed suddenly among willows, and came to rest against a shallow bank. The clustering thin light blades of the willow-leaves fell over them as they stepped out, bit them with infinitesimal teeth. She followed him without will, or conscious movement, through nettles and long grass, to a clearing among the bushes, in the middle of the leafy little mound which was the island. In the old days they had often picnicked here, and thought the minute patch of earth a whole world and made themselves kings and queens of it. They had gathered blackberries from these low bushes in the hot sun; and come home again with purple mouths and fingers. Now the little boy Roddy was this tall man whose shoulder touching hers was more bewildering than the moon-rise; whose head above hers was a barrier blocking out the world. They stood side by side. He turned to her and whispered: ‘Well, Judy?’ ‘Oh, Roddy!...’ ‘Judy, I’m going to say good-bye to you here.’ His voice was low, grave, distinct.