I helped her across the stile. Out of the shadow of the tall hedge, the grassy country lay grey and unsubstantial under the rising moon. The black spire of the church showed through the trees, and in a little while we reached the low wall where I had sat all the afternoon. But how changed the place was! Flooded with fantastic moonlight, only the shadows now seemed real. “You do not want to go inside?” Katherine asked, dissuasively. “No; we can see it from here.” And I leaned over the low wall. “It is not like a modern cemetery,” I again told her. “There is nothing horrid here. There are no bodies;――nothing but a little dust, and a few spirits, perhaps, that have not gone away.” “Ghosts? Are you not afraid of them?” “I don’t know. Not now, at any rate; these ghosts are friendly; they are so old.” “Have you seen them?” “No. I saw one at home in my bedroom when I was a little chap, but it was not nice; it was not like these.... You are buried here,” I added, smiling. But Katherine turned away quickly. “Don’t,” she said. “Why do you like to be so morbid? Besides, I don’t think it is right.” I could see that I had vexed her, and I changed the subject. Down by the grave just below us the tiny green light of a glow-worm glimmered, but I did not point it out to Katherine. A fairy tale of Hans Andersen’s came into my mind, and I saw Death, like an old gardener, floating over the wall with a soul, like a baby, folded in his arms; and I watched him lay it softly to sleep under the trees. I had forgotten all the details of the story, but I made a story for myself, and the moonlight on the grass and on the weather-worn grave-stones, and the black, lurking shadows, and the still, moon-drenched church, wove into it a mysterious beauty. It seemed to me that something might happen now that would make, for me at least, all things different for ever after, that would push the boundaries of life infinitely further back, by bringing a dimmer, vaster world directly into relation with me. In that world, perhaps, they dreamed of this, just as I was now dreaming of it. I was aroused by Katherine. “We must go, Peter.” She laid her hand on my arm. “All right.” I took a last look, and then stepped out briskly beside her. “I oughtn’t to have brought you here,” I said, “out of your way.” “I enjoyed coming. I am not in any hurry myself, but you know how early they go to bed, and it must be getting late.” “Do you like me, Katherine,” I asked, pleasantly. “If I had disliked you I don’t suppose I should have tramped all these miles with you.” “You are sure I don’t bore you, or anything?” “Not up to the present. Why do you ask?” she smiled. “I just wanted to make sure. Girls, as a rule, would rather have older people than I am――wouldn’t they――fellows like the curate? I only mention him because you happen to have met him. You’re seventeen, which means that you’re grown up, and――――”