At last he had his desire. They had left the others. She had led him, out past the row of white cottages, to a rock on the side of the hill, high over the sea, with the harbour below them, the village, curved like a moon in the hills’ hollow, behind the harbour, and a little cluster of trees at the hill top striking the blue night sky: opposite them was the Peak rock, black and jagged, lying out into the water like a dragon couchant. They could see the plateau above the Peak where the bonfire was to be, they could see the fish-market silver grey in the evening light, and the harbour like a green square handkerchief with the boats painted upon it. The houses, like an amphitheatre of spectators, watched and waited, their lights turning from pale yellow to flame as the evening colours faded; crying, singing, laughing voices came up to their rock, but they were utterly, finally remote. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and they sat there in silence. At last, half-dreamily, gazing forward into the sea that, stirred by no wind, heaved ever and again, with some sigh, some tremor born of its own happiness, she talked. “You can see the bonfire and the figures moving around it. Soon the moon will be right above the Peak.... Isn’t everything quiet? I never knew last year how different this one would be from any that I had ever known before.” She turned half towards him, caught his hand and held it. “Phil, you must be very patient with me. I’ve felt so much that you were part of me that I’ve expected you to see things always as I do. Of course that was ridiculous of me. You _can’t_ love this place quite as I do—it must take time.... You aren’t angry with me, are you?” “Angry?” he laughed. “Because the closer I get to you—the longer we’re engaged, the less, in some ways, I seem to know you. I never realised until you came how shut up as a family we’ve been, how wrapt up in ourselves. That must be hard for you to understand....” “There it goes!” he broke in suddenly. The bonfire leapt into fire: instantly the village glowed with flame, a golden pool burnt beneath the Peak, the houses that had been blue-grey in the dusk now reflected a rosy glow, and whirling, dancing sparks flew up to join the stars. Little black figures were dancing round the blaze; down on the fish-market other figures were moving, and the faint echo of a fiddle and a horn was carried across the water. Something said to Philip, ‘Tell her—now.’ He plunged with the same tightening of the heart that he would have known had he sprung from their rock into the pools of the sea below them. He put his arm more tightly around her, and there was a desperate clutch in the pressure of his fingers, as though he were afraid lest she should vanish and he be left with sky, land and sea flaming and leaping beneath the fire’s blaze.