t human soul, on and on, nobody knows
where; in contradiction to the perpendicular lines and to the Gothic
arch, which, he said, leapt up at heaven and touched the ecstasy and
lost itself in the divine. Himself, he said, was Norman, Miriam was
Gothic. She bowed in consent even to that.

One evening he and she went up the great sweeping shore of sand towards
Theddlethorpe. The long breakers plunged and ran in a hiss of foam along
the coast. It was a warm evening. There was not a figure but themselves
on the far reaches of sand, no noise but the sound of the sea. Paul
loved to see it clanging at the land. He loved to feel himself between
the noise of it and the silence of the sandy shore. Miriam was with him.
Everything grew very intense. It was quite dark when they turned again.
The way home was through a gap in the sandhills, and then along a raised
grass road between two dykes. The country was black and still. From
behind the sandhills came the whisper of the sea. Paul and Miriam walked
in silence. Suddenly he started. The whole of his blood seemed to burst
into flame, and he could scarcely breathe. An enormous orange moon was
staring at them from the rim of the sandhills. He stood still, looking
at it.

"Ah!" cried Miriam, when she saw it.

He remained perfectly still, staring at the immense and ruddy moon, the
only thing in the far-reaching darkness of the level. His heart beat
heavily, the muscles of his arms contracted.

"What is it?" murmured Miriam, waiting for him.

He turned and looked at her. She stood beside him, for ever in shadow.
Her face, covered with the darkness of her hat, was watching him
unseen. But she was brooding. She was slightly afraid--deeply moved
and religious. That was her best state. He was impotent against it. His
blood was concentrated like a flame in his chest. But he could not get
across to her. There were flashes in his blood. But somehow she ignored
them. She was expecting some religious state in him. Still yearning, she
was half aware of his passion, and gazed at him, troubled.

"What is it?" she murmured again.

"It's the moon," he answered, frowning.

"Yes," she assented. "Isn't it wonderful?" She was curious about him.
The crisis was past.

He did not know himself what was the matter. He was naturally so young,
and their intimacy was so abstract, he did not know he wanted to crush
her on to his breast to ease the ache there. He was afraid of her.
The fact that he might