All the windows were dark in Alderslea, except one faint dormer where an old woman was dying. They began to climb the lane that led up to the Mountain. Cattle looked over hedges, breathing hard with curiosity. In an upland field a flock of horned sheep were racing to and fro through a gap in the hedge, coughing and stamping at intervals, and looking, as the moon rose, like fantastic devils working sorcery with their own shadows.
The lamps dimmed in the moonlight and the world seemed to widen infinitely, like life at the coming of love. The country lay below like a vast white mere, and the hill sloped vaguely to a silver sky. Vessons walked up the batch to ease the cob, and Edward looked down at Hazel and murmured:
'My little child!'
'Dunna talk,' said Hazel quickly; 'it's bad for 'ee!' She was afraid to break the magical silence, afraid that the new peace that came with Marston's presence would vanish like the moon in driving cloud, and that she would feel the dragging chain that pulled her back to Reddin.
Edward was silent, puzzling over the question, Why had not Hazel asked for his help? Reddin must have seen her at least several times, must have persecuted her. He grew very uneasy. He must ask Hazel.
They drew up before the white-sentried graveyard. Vessons went up the path and knocked at the silent house. Then he threw handfuls of white spar off a grave at the windows. The Minorca cockerel crew reedily.
'That's unlucky,' said Hazel.
Mrs. Marston put her head out, very sleepy, and asked who it was.
'The conquering 'ero!' said Vessons, as Edward and Hazel came up the path, deeply shadowed. He got into the trap and drove off.
'Well, Undern'll be summat like itself again now,' he thought.