He pointed to the trees, above which the moon, large, red, and dim, like a cloud shone on by the expiring sun, was slowly sailing up. "It is now half-past ten," I remarked. "It may prove after all a fool's errand. However we can sip our grog and stroll out afterwards, if you like--go, at all events, to the fields, and linger in the cool till you shall think proper to return." He consented, though assuring me it would be no inconvenience to him to sit through the night. He was anxious, he added, that I should have my mind cleared of the odd fancies that encumbered it; and very proud and happy would it make him to believe that he had been instrumental in solving any problem that perplexed, or helping forward any desires that agitated me. I did not doubt, though he was cautious not to suggest, that he thought me a very odd, fanciful, even half-crazy being. A downright practical intrigue, a transparent love-affair, he could very readily have understood; but a passion excited by meeting a woman under circumstances so strange, a love inflamed by superstition and yet made imbecile by timidity, it was not in his nature to comprehend. It was fortunate perhaps that his polite incredulity curbed my natural tendency to rhapsodise, or I might have written myself down a greater ass in his eyes than he was disposed to think me. We left the house at an hour considerably past the appointed time. Sitting over our brandy-and-water we had fallen into an argument, and had prosecuted it with an industry and enthusiasm that had made us forgetful of the clock. He was the first to recall our scheme. "See!" he exclaimed, "it is twenty minutes to twelve; close upon the hour when churchyards yawn." "Come, then," said I; "but lest we encounter more than our nerves--_my_ nerves at all events--are prepared to meet, let us take one glass more." He refused with a smile. I brimmed a tumbler. "_Ai mali extremi, extremi remedi_," said he, laughing. "You may need the remedy yourself yet," I retorted, as I led the way into the garden. The air was so silent that, as we marched with soundless tread upon the velvet lawn, I could hear the rustle of an occasional leaf falling from the branches. Among the trees the moon threw level beams, that lay like fallen marble columns. The shadows were swart and stirless. I was kept silent by my thoughts. He was loquacious. We gained the end of the grounds, passed through the gate, and entered the fields. "What an oppressive night!" he exclaimed, removing his hat and fanning himself with it. "The moon seems hardly able to pierce her light through the sultry air. I should have thought such a temperature impossible in fifty-five degrees north." "It must end in a storm. The stars look white and sick with the heat. Perhaps they are paling their ineffectual fires before the brilliance of the lightning which they can see but we cannot." We had gained the summit of the hillock whereon I had before stood. I seated myself.