Elizabeth dug the ferrule of her parasol into the gravel at her feet. "It is David's money. You took his wife. Now you are taking his money. . . . You can't keep both of them." She said this very gently, so gently that for a moment he did not grasp the sense of her words. When he did it seemed to him that she did not herself realize what she had said, for immediately, in the same calmly matter-of-fact way, she began to speak of unimportant things: the river was very low, wasn't it? What a pity they were cutting the trees on the opposite hill. "They are burning the brush," she said; "do you smell the smoke? I love the smell of burning brush in October." She was simpler and pleasanter than she had been for a long time. But he could not know that it was because she felt, inarticulately, that her burden had been lifted; she herself could not have said why, but she was almost happy. Blair was confused to the point of silence by her abrupt return to the commonplace. He glanced at her with furtive anxiety. "Oh, see the moon!" Elizabeth said, and for a moment they watched the great disk of the Hunter's moon rising in the translucent dusk behind the hills. "That purple haze in the east is like the bloom on a plum," Blair said. "I think we had better go now," Elizabeth said, rising. But though she had seemed so friendly, she did not even turn her head to see if he were following her, and he had to hurry to overtake her as she went down the path to the half-sunken float that was rocking slightly in the grassy shallows. As he knelt, steadying the boat with one hand, he held the other up to her, and this time she did not repulse him; but when she put her hand into his, he kissed it with abrupt, unhappy passion,--and she drew it from him sharply. When she took her place in the stern and lifted the tiller-ropes she looked at him, gathering up his oars, with curious gentleness. . . .