we might go on wandering for ever in the moonlight.
There never could be another night like this."

But they had come already to the dark belt of woodland that the first
Hewishes had planted, a darkness unvisited by moonlight, where their
feet rustled a carpet of dead leaves, and shy, nocturnal creatures made
another rustling beside them. At the edge of the wood a bird flew out
of a thorn tree. "It's a brown owl," cried Radway; but when its wings
caught the moonlight they saw the band of white. "It's a magpie," she
said. "One for sorrow ..." and smiled.

Roscarna stood before them, the ghost of a great house with many solemn
windows for eyes. It looked blank, uninhabited, lifeless. Between the
house and the river moonlight smoothed the lawns. The moon made that
cold stone phantom imponderable, a grey mirage. Radway could not
believe, for a moment, that it was real; but the sense of Gabrielle's
cold cheek against his lips, her fingers twined in his, and her soft,
unhurried breathing recalled him, telling him that he was a lover,
awake and alive.

They crossed the bridge and entered the house by the front doors. The
latch clanged to, echoing, and Biddy Joyce appeared in a red petticoat.
Gabrielle introduced Radway, and Biddy was not scandalized, being used
to the freedoms of Irish hospitality. Jocelyn had been in bed for half
an hour or more, she said, and as the state in which he had retired was
problematical they thought it better not to disturb him. They gave
Radway supper in the dining-room, Gabrielle sitting opposite to him
with her chin in the cup of her hands and her face white with
candle-light.

In the meantime Biddy had prepared a guest-room for him, a sombre
chamber with long windows, so sealed by neglect that they could not be
opened, in which a broken pane served for ventilator. In the middle of
it stood a bed, painted and gilt, in the manner of the seventeenth
century, with panels of crimson brocade, threadbare but still
beautiful, although the pattern of their ornament had faded long since.
Gabrielle lighted him to his room, stepping softly along the uncarpeted
passage. At the door they surrendered themselves to a passionate
good-night.

VI

Radway stayed at Roscarna for three days. Irish ways are easy, and
Jocelyn did not appear surprised to see his daughter's correspondent at
the breakfast-table. He measured Radway shrewdly with his screwed-up
eyes and decided that he was a sp