The tide was at full ebb at midnight. At a quarter before she made ready. She took from the bureau a book she had been reading—if she met any one she could say she had come down to find it—and opened her door with the stealth of a burglar. A dead silence reigned as she stole down the stairs and into the living-room. Here the great line of windows—the moon not yet upon them—shone in gray oblongs diffusing a spectral light that did not touch the darkness under the galleries.
At the entrance, pressed against the door, she looked out. It was a world of white enchantment, breathlessly still. She could see the patterned surfaces of leaves, the cracks and fissures of the rocks. Below the channel lay almost bare, pools glistening like dropped mirrors, mounds of mud casting inky shadows. In the middle—a restless silvery sparkle—ran a narrow stream carrying a glinting line of radiance to the ocean beyond. The pungent smell of mud and seaweed came from it along with the sleepy lisp of rippling water.
She could hear the murmur of the men’s voices from the open library windows, and like the throbbing of a muffled engine, the beating of her own heart.
Into that deep enveloping quietude came a sound, so faint, so infinitely small and hushed, that only expectant ears could have caught it. It came from the room behind her, and turning, she slid back against the wall, her body black against its blackness. The sound continued, the opening of a door opposite, the door into the kitchen wing. It seemed no door in the world had ever opened so slowly—creaking, stopping, resuming, dying away. She could see nothing, for the darkness of the gallery lay impenetrable over that furtive entrance.
There was a footstep, light as the fall of a leaf, and she saw him coming toward her in that high luminous pallor from the windows. He was like a shadow, so evenly dark, a shape without detail, moving with a shadow’s noiseless passage. She saw the outline of the cap on his head and that he carried his shoes in one hand.
She came forward with a hand raised for caution, sending her voice before her in an agonized whisper:
“Go back, Joe. The causeway’s watched. You can’t get over that way. Go!”
He was gone, a fleet flying, vanishing back into the darkness under the gallery. Out of it came the soft closing of the door.
The room swayed, pale light and darkness swam and coalesced. She knew she was near a table and put out her hand to steady herself by it, something solid to hold to for one minute. The polished surface slid under her fingers and she groped out with the hand that held the book. The book slipped from her clasp, fell with a thud like a thunderclap, and a grasping snatch to save it swept a lamp crashing to the floor. Panic dispelled her faintness and she made a rush for the door. She had gained it. Her fingers clutched round the knob, as she heard the steps of the men in the hall and knew it was too late to escape.
They burst in, thrust into the room’s dim quiet as if shot by a blast.