its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars
glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the
darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along
the edge of the heavens.

She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face
were covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her.

Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the
farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to
the grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk,
waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the
hedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the
grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where
still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the
under-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had
left them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk;
others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of
moonlight and of dusk, farther off.

They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go,
towards the moon? For they were separate, single.

"We will put up some sheaves," said Anna. So they could
remain there in the broad, open place.

They went across the stubble to where the long rows of
upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field
looked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and
prostrate.

The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees
stood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for
the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart
seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should
be heard.

"You take this row," she said to the youth, and passing on,
she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands
in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either
hand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the
cleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down,
bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks
stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with
the gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by.
He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her
sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn.
It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed.

Then she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly
to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the
vague