The moon was just coming up above the distant trees. Igraine waited under the black-vaulted cedar till the great ring rode bleak above the fringe of the tops before she went down between laurels to the water's edge. There was a deep cedarn scent on the warm air, and everything seemed deathly still. Going to the landing stage, she stood there awhile looking at the water, dark and mysterious, with pale webs of light upon its agate surface. Then she began to bind her hair closely on her head, smiling to herself, and staring down at her vague image in the water. Her hair in shackles, she turned to her task in earnest. Soon habit, shift, and sandals were lying in a heap, and she was standing clean, rare, gleamingly straight as a statue, with her arms folded upon her breast. For a moment she stood, making the night to swoon, before taking to the mere. Pearly white with an aureole of foam, she swam flankwise with an overhand stroke, one arm thrusting out like a silver sickle. Here and there, fretted by the willows, long moonbeams glinted on her round whiteness, as the maddened foam bubbled, and the water sighed and yearned amid the sedges. A fine glow had leapt through her body like wine, and the mere seemed to sway and sing as she swam for the main bank, where the willows stood blackly in a mist of phosphor glory. Soon she reached the shallows at a pleasant place where stretch of grassland tongued down into the mere. She climbed out, and stood like a water nymph, her body agleam and asparkle with its dew, her skin like rare silk, smooth as a star's glance. Down fell her hair like smoke. She stretched her arms to the moon, and laughed, aglow with the warmth gotten of her swim. Then she went to where the barge lay amid the reeds, and boarding it poled out into the deeps. Standing on the poop she used an oar as a paddle, and so brought the cumbrous barge slowly under way. It stole out from the fretted shadows of the trees, and glided like a great ark over the mere in black silence, save for the dip of the blade and the drip of water. The voyage took Igraine longer than her swim. At last, with the boat moored at the stage, she dried her limbs and body with her hair, and took again to shift and habit. Then she stole back to the manor, listened a moment to Pelleas's breathing, and having lit her lamp she went to bed. Next morning Igraine, with her deed locked up in her heart, was preparing Pelleas a meal. He had just stirred and roused himself from sleep with a little cry, and he was watching the girl with the mute reflective look of one just freed from the visions of the night. "Igraine," he said. She turned to him with a soft smile. "I have been dreaming," he confessed gravely. "Dreaming, Pelleas?"