"It's a fearsome sort of place," he said. "It was not like this the other night we walked through the woods."
"These woods have not been cut out," said Pen. "The old presences have never been disturbed."
Finally the path with a sharp turn brought them abruptly out under the open sky again. It was as if something had been lifted off their heads. They had come to a low bank at the head of a straight, narrow arm of water thrust into the heart of the pines. A great bird arose from below them and passed away like a shadow with a soft swishing of wings. The path ended in a shaky little wharf with a single plank laid upon it. They stepped gingerly out upon it hand in hand, and stood looking down the reach. The South wind passed high above their heads and the surface of the water was perfectly unruffled.
At the moment the moon was looking down the straight arm so squarely one might have said she had cleft the opening herself with her silver blade of light. Down at the end of the narrow arm they had the sense of a wider body of water running at right angles, a pearly, fairy-like strait. On the point which separated the two bodies of water stood a little white house gleaming wanly in the moonlight. In a window of the house, a curious note in that dreamy world of opal and pearl, shone an insistent yellow light.
"Surely real people can't live there," murmured Don.
"The worst kind, unfortunately," said Pen. "That's where the oystermen go to get drunk."
They retraced their steps up the bank. When they trod firm earth again, Pen repossessed herself of her hand.
"Where now?" asked Don.
"There's no place to go but back."
"Not yet," he pleaded. "Let's stay here awhile. There's plenty of time. There are no mosquitoes to-night."