He bowed, turned and walked back along the beach, hands locked behind his broad tweed back, his head bent.
Pete tightened his grip on Sylvie’s arm. “Come,” he said to her as harshly as before. “We must hurry. It’s nearly night.”
Sylvie set her small teeth tight, bent down her head, and followed him without a word. Their silence seemed to grow into a pressure, a weight. It bent Pete’s shoulders and Sylvie’s slender neck, and whitened their lips. All that they did not dare to say aloud bulked itself, huge and thunderous, before the combined consciousness which makes a strange third companion in such dual silences. They dared not pause, or look at each other, or move their strained lips for fear truth, the desperate, treacherous truth, would leap out and link them like a lightning-flash. The somber forest enveloped them. They moved through it as through a deep wall that opened by enchantment. The moon came up, gibbous and white and glittering, paler than silver; and the forest became streaked and mottled with its light. A soft, sudden wind tore the light and shade into eerie, dancing ribbons and tatters and shreds. There were such sounds as are not heard in daylight—moon sounds and cloud sounds and sounds of dark wind; branches talked and other small voices answered in anxious undertones. A moose rubbed his antlers and coughed. They heard his big body hulking through a swamp down there in a well of darkness.
“I can’t go so fast.” Sylvie’s shaken voice moved doubtfully. “I’m tired.”
She pulled at his arm and stopped. The whole forest seemed to sway and stir and urge them to haste and secrecy.
“A storm’s coming,” Pete answered. “I can’t carry you, Sylvie, unless I leave my load.”
“Do you think I’d let you carry me?” she answered through her set teeth. “I’d rather die here than let you lift me up in your arms. I’ll go on till I drop. I don’t care for the storm. But I can’t walk so fast. How can you see? The moon isn’t—can’t be, I mean—very, very bright here in the woods.”
“The moon? There’s a big storm-cloud just going to wipe it out. Listen! Don’t you hear that thunder, that wind?”
The storm blew its distant trumpets, shouted louder, trampled the world with great steps, crashed and came upon them with a wet, cold blast. They were stunned with noise, dazzled with flashes, smothered and beaten with long, wet whips. Under a big rocking pine which shouted with a hundred confused tongues they found a dangerous shelter. Not far from them a tree was struck, splitting their ears, half stunning them. When the worst was over, Pete drew Sylvie out relentlessly and started in the heavily falling rain. The storm was drawing away, but the night was still impenetrably black. They walked for a few groping yards when Pete gave a sudden desperate laugh and stopped.
“What’s the good of this! We’re off the trail. We’ll have to wait for the light. My God! How cold and wet and trembling you are.” He threw down his pack, took off his coat, wet only on the outside, and wrapped it closely about her. She felt that he parted branches for her, and she knew that they were in a dry, still, scented place whose walls stirred and breathed. She sank down beside him on the smooth pine-needles and crept close. They were giddy, beaten and confused; they felt each other’s trembling warmth; for greater comfort she tucked her hands under his arm. Her head dropped back against his shoulder so that her breath fell on his cheek. He felt the silent tears of her humiliation, hot and bitter and human after the cold, impersonal wetness of rain. It was as though a hand drew them together in the darkness; they moved numbly at the same instant, by the same impulse; then with a sort of convulsion they were in each other’s arms. Cold, wet, tremulous, their lips met. The night became the beating of a heart.