Then Sir Richmond spoke. “I love, you,” he said, “with all my heart.” Her soft voice came back after a stillness. “I love you,” she said, “with all myself.” “I had long ceased to hope,” said Sir Richmond, “that I should ever find a friend... a lover... perfect companionship....” They went on walking side by side, without touching each other or turning to each other. “All the things I wanted to think I believe have come alive in me,” she said.... “Cool and sweet,” said Sir Richmond. “Such happiness as I could not have imagined.” The light of a silent bicycle appeared above them up the hill and swept down upon them, lit their two still faces brightly and passed. “My dear,” she whispered in the darkness between the high hedges. They stopped short and stood quite still, trembling. He saw her face, dim and tender, looking up to his. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her lips as he had desired in his dream.... When they returned to the inn Belinda Seyffert offered flat explanations of why she had not followed them, and enlarged upon the moonlight effect of the Abbey ruins from the inn lawn. But the scared congratulations in her eyes betrayed her recognition that momentous things had happened between the two. CHAPTER THE EIGHTH FULL MOON Section 1 Sir Richmond had talked in the moonlight and shadows of having found such happiness as he could not have imagined. But when he awoke in the night that happiness had evaporated. He awoke suddenly out of this love dream that had lasted now for nearly four days and he awoke in a mood of astonishment and dismay. He had thought that when he parted from Dr. Martineau he had parted also from that process of self-exploration that they had started together, but now he awakened to find it established and in full activity in his mind. Something or someone, a sort of etherealized Martineau-Hardy, an abstracted intellectual conscience, was demanding what he thought he was doing with Miss Grammont and whither he thought he was taking her, how he proposed to reconcile the close relationship with her that he was now embarked upon with, in the first place, his work upon and engagements with the Fuel Commission, and, in the second place, Martin Leeds. Curiously enough Lady Hardy didn’t come into the case at all. He had done his utmost to keep Martin Leeds out of his head throughout the development of this affair. Now in an unruly and determined way that was extremely characteristic of her she seemed resolute to break in.