he water, on the white
slopes of lawn, and in some of the windows of the house, lights were
appearing. The electricians were testing the red and blue lamps they had
been stringing among the rose-beds, and from the gabled boathouse on the
further side, a bright shaft from a small searchlight which had been
fixed there, was striking across the water. Geoffrey watched it
wandering over the dark wood on his right, lighting up the tall stems of
the beeches, and sending a tricky gleam or two among the tangled
underwood. It seemed to him a symbol of the sudden illumination of mind
and purpose which had come to him, there, on the shadowed water--and he
turned to look at a window which he knew was Helena's. There were lights
within it, and he pictured Helena at her glass, about to slip into some
bright dress or other, which would make her doubly fair. Meanwhile from
the rose of the sunset, rosy lights were stealing over the water and
faintly glorifying the old house and its spreading gardens. An
overpowering sense of youth--of the beauty of the world--of the mystery
of the future, beat through his pulses. The coming dance became a rite
of Aphrodite, towards which all his being strained.

Suddenly, there was a loud snapping noise, as of breaking branches in the
wood beside him. It was so startling that his hands paused on the oars,
as he looked quickly round to see what could have produced it. And at the
same moment the searchlight on the boathouse reached the spot to which
his eyes were drawn, and he saw for an instant--sharply distinct and
ghostly white--a woman's face and hands--amid the blackness of the wood.
He had only a moment in which to see them, in which to catch a glimpse of
a figure among the trees, before the light was gone, leaving a double
gloom behind it.

Mysterious! Who could it be? Was it some one who wanted to be put across
the pond? He shouted. "Who is that?"

Then he rowed in to the shore, straining his eyes to see. It occurred to
him that it might be a lady's maid brought by a guest, who had been out
for a walk, and missed her way home in a strange park. "Do you want to
get to the house? I can put you across to it if you wish," he said in a
loud voice, addressing the unknown--"otherwise you'll have to go a long
way round."

No answer--only an intensity of silence, through which he heard from a
great distance a church clock striking. The wood and all its detail had
vanished in profound shadow.

Conscio