They were in a huge meadow, sloping upwards to mysterious, night-wrapped hedges. The moonlight still trembled over the marsh, kindling sudden streaks of water, steeping fogs, silvering pollards and reeds. One could distinctly see the little houses on the Kent side of the Rother, Ethnam, and Lossenham, and Lambstand, some with lights blinking from them, others just black patches on the moon-grey country. Rose looked out towards them, and tried to picture in each a hearth beside which a husband and wife sat united ... then suddenly they were blotted out, as Handshut's face loomed dark between her and them, and his lips slowly fastened on her own. For a moment she yielded to the kiss, then suddenly tore herself away. "Rose ..." "Let me go--I can't." "Rose, why shud you pretend? You döan't love the mäaster, and you do love me. Why shudn't we be happy together?" "We--I can't." "Why?--I love you, and you love me. Come away wud me--you shan't have a hard life----" "--It's not that." "Wot is it then?" "It's--oh, I can't--I'm his wife." She pushed him from her as he tried to take her in his arms again, and stumbled to her feet. "It's late--I--I must go home." "Rose, you queer me." He had risen too, and stood before her in mingled pain and surprise. He thought her resistance mere coyness, and suddenly flung his arms round her as she stood. She began to cry. "No, no--don't be so cruel! Let me go!--I'm his wife." § 21. The walk home was dreary, for Rose and Handshut misunderstood each other, and yet loved each other too. She was silent, almost shamefaced, and he was a little disgusted with her--he felt that she had misled him, and in his soreness added "willingly." They scarcely spoke, and the night spread round them its web of pondering silence. Aldebaran guttered above Kent, and the blurred patch of the Pleiades hung over the curded fogs that hid the Rother. There was no wind, but every now and then the grass rippled and the leaves fluttered, while a low hissing sound went through the trees. Sometimes from the distance came the shouts of some revellers still at large, echoing weirdly over the moon-steeped fields, and divinely purged by space and night. Sobs were still thick in Rose's throat, when they came to Handshut's cottage, a little tumble-down place, shaped like a rabbit's head. She stopped. "Don't come any further." "Why?" "It would be better if I wasn't seen with you." He looked at her white face. "You're frighted." "No." "Yes--and I'm coming wud you, surelye." "I should be frightened if you came." She managed to persuade him to go his different way--though the actual moment of their parting was always a blur in her memory. Afterwards she could not remember if they had kissed, touched hands, or parted without a word. Her throat was still full of sobs when she came to Odiam; she was panting, too, for she had run all the way--she did not know why.