Low and immense—pale in the pallor of the eastern sky—the moon hung poised above massed shadows, like a wraith escaped from the city of death. Moment by moment, she drew light from the vanished sun. Moment by moment, under their watching eyes, she conjured the formless dark into a new heaven, a new earth....
"Would you be afraid—to stroll round a little ... with me?" he asked.
"Afraid? I would love it—if Thea will allow." This time she did not look up.
Vincent and Thea were sitting a little farther along the balustrade; Lance beside them, imbibing tales of Rajasthán. Flossie and her Captain had already disappeared.
"I'm going to be frankly a Goth and flash my electric torch into holes and corners," Lance announced as the other two came up. "I bar being intimidated by ghosts."
"We're not going to be intimidated either," said Roy, addressing himself to Thea. "And I guarantee not to let Arúna be spirited away."
Vincent shot a look at his wife. "Don't wander too far," said he.
"And don't hang about too long," she added. "It'll be cold going home."
Though he was standing close to her, she could say no more. But, under cover of the dusk, her hand found his and closed on it hard.
The characteristic impulse heartened him amazingly, as he followed Arúna down the ghostly stairway, through marble cloisters into the hanging garden, misted with moonlight, fragrant with orange trees.