Cardo turned round quickly.
"Valmai! Miss Powell!" he said, "how silently you came upon me! I was dreaming. Come and stand here. Is not that scene one to make a poet of the most prosaic man?"
"Yes, indeed," answered the girl, standing beside him with a strangely beating heart, "it is beautiful! I saw the sky through the chapel window, and I was thinking it would be very nice down here. There's bright and clear the moon is!"
They were walking now across the beach, at the edge of the surf.
"It reminds me of something I read out to uncle last night. It was out of one of his old Welsh poets—Taliesin, or Davydd ap Gwilym, or somebody. It was about the moon, but indeed I don't know if I can put it into English."
"Try," said Cardo.
"'She comes from out the fold
And leads her starry flock among the fields of night.'"
"Yes, that is beautiful," said Cardo. "Indeed, I am glad you find something interesting in those dog-eared old books."
"Dog-eared? But they are indeed," she said, laughing. "But how do you know? They may be gold and leather, and spic and span from the bookseller's, for all you know."
"No, I have seen them, and have seen you reading them."