‘Yes,’ said Mary, and then they went on, stumbling in the dark places, and now and then coming out like ghosts,--two weird figures,--into the silver light. Though he had brought her out on the pretence of having so much to say, in reality he scarcely talked at all. And she kept by his side, with her heart giving irregular thumps against her breast. She had not breath enough to bid him not to go any farther, and the sound of her own foot-steps and his in the utter stillness seemed to wake all kinds of curious echoes in the dark wood. Mary was half frightened, and yet rapt into a curious mysterious exaltation of feeling. What was he thinking of? Were they two the same creatures who had come down that same path together,--was it six years or six hours ago? The darkness among the trees around was not more profound than was the darkness in which Ben’s life had been enveloped during his absence. He had written home, it is true, and they had known where he went, and what, as people say, he was doing all the time; but of his real existence Mary knew as little,--just as little and as much, as he of hers. Thus they went on, until they came to the opening, and the green bank upon the river-side, which lay in a flood of moonlight all shut and bounded round by the blackness of the woods. ‘What a pity there is no boat!’ said Ben. ‘I might have taken you up the reach as far as the moonlight goes. We must have a boat. I did not think it was so sweet. And there is Cookesley Church across the fields. I remember so well looking at it the last time through the branches of the big beech. How high the river is! Whose boat is that, I wonder, on the other side?’ ‘Oh, it is from The Willows, I suppose,’ said Mary, with a kind of desperation. ‘The Willows? that is something new. Is it old Peters and his sister? But you told me he was dead. What sort of people are at The Willows now?’ ‘Two ladies,’ said Mary, succinctly. Was not this like the very hand of fate? Why The Willows should thus thrust itself quite arbitrarily into the conversation without any word or warning she could not tell. It was like the work of a malicious spirit. ‘Two ladies!’ said Ben. ‘You are very terse,--terser than I ever knew you. And who may the two ladies be who venture on the river in the moonlight?’ ‘Oh, I do not think they are in the boat.’ ‘But whether they are in the boat or not, who are they?’ said Ben, and there was a sound as of laughter in his voice.