A light flashed from a window in Oliver Thorn's house. Rod rested his chin on cupped palms. Unrest, longing blew through the spaces of his being like a hot wind. The bright moon and the dusky woods beckoned him into their restful silences, and the light across the channel seemed to blink a message. It drew him like a magnet. Over there his heart lay. If Isabel's unheralded breakdown had served no other purpose, it had filled him with a wild impatience, revived a fever that burned him. The madness of a lover's moon! The coursing blood of youth clamoring for the fulfilment of life's promise,--life that promises so much and often gives so little. The impulse to translate dreams into realities. _Quien sabe?_ He rose and went softly downstairs and out a side door to the pale emptiness of the lawn crossed with inky bands of shadow, and so sauntering, head bowed and hands sunk deep in his pockets, presently brought up on the float. The _Haida_ lay moored on one side, the _Kowloon_ on the other. A profusion of canoes and rowboats lay hauled out on the planks. Rod stood awhile, like a man in two minds. His eyes lingered on the moon-path. His ears took note of the lessening monotone between the Gillard Islands on the east and the choked westward passage inside Little Dent. A still night and a slackening tide. He got into a dinghy, shipped the oars, rowed slowly out into the channel. Halfway, an eddy setting toward the Valdez shore took him in its sweep. He let the oars rest and lighted a cigarette, gazing at the tranquil, silvery beauty. "What a night," he whispered. "What a night for fairies and mermaids--and lovers." Then the current slid him into the deep shadow cast by the high forested ridge behind Oliver Thorn's house, and as his boat touched the float and he sat in a moment of indecision, a voice spoke softly: "Hello, Rod." He looked sharply over the float. The shadow of the hills lay on it like folds of crepe. But in a moment he made out a dim figure. He went over, still holding the painter in his hand. It was Mary, wrapped in a gray coat, sitting on a box. "I thought you'd be in your little trundle bed," he greeted her. "Then why did you come?" she asked. "I don't quite know. Just on the chance. I was restless. Moon madness, maybe." He sat down beside her. One hand shone white in the gloom where it stretched on her knee. Rod possessed himself of that. He bent, peering into her face. Her eyes glowed at him. "All by your lonesome out here in the dark," he murmured. "How come, Brownie? Did you sit yourself down here to put the come-hither on me?" She shook her head. "Well, I came." He put his arms around her, drew her close, felt her settle against him unresistingly. "Glad?" She nodded. A solitary loon lifted his harsh, complaining cry somewhere in the shining channel. "Calling his mate. And I've found mine. Or have I?"