They skirted the Corkwood dyke, from which rose the stupefying, sodden, almost flavorous, smell of dying reeds—a waterfowl suddenly croaked among them, and another answered her with a wail from beyond Ethnam. The willows were shimmering silver dreams, bathed in the light of the moon which hung above the Fivewatering and had washed nearly all the stars out of the sky—only Sirius hung like a dim lamp over Great Knell, while Lyra was faint above Reedbed in the north.
Rose walked half leaning against Handshut. She felt a very little feeble thing in the power of that great amorous night. The warm breath of the wind in her hair, the caress of moonlight on her eyes, the throbbing, miasmic, night-sweet scents of water and grass, the hush, the great sleep ... all tore at her heart, all weakened her with their huge soft strength, all crushed with their languors the poor resistance of her will.
The tears began to roll down her cheeks, they shone on her face in the moonlight—they fell quite fast as she walked on gripped against her lover's heart. She was leaning more and more heavily against him, for her strength was ebbing fast—oh, if he would only speak!—she could not walk much further, and yet she dared not rest beside him on that haunted ground.
At last they came to where the high land rose out of the levels like a shore out of the sea, with a lick of road on it, winding up to Peasmarsh. It was here that Rose's uncertain strength failed her, she lurched against Handshut, and still encircled by his arms slid to the grass.
They were in a huge meadow, sloping upwards to mysterious, night-wrapped hedges. The moonlight still trembled over the marsh, kindling sudden streaks of water, steeping fogs, silvering pollards and reeds. One could distinctly see the little houses on the Kent side of the Rother, Ethnam, and Lossenham, and Lambstand, some with lights blinking from them, others just black patches on the moon-grey country. Rose looked out towards them, and tried to picture in each a hearth beside which a husband and wife sat united ... then suddenly they were blotted out, as Handshut's face loomed dark between her and them, and his lips slowly fastened on her own.
For a moment she yielded to the kiss, then suddenly tore herself away.
"Rose ..."
"Let me go—I can't."
"Rose, why shud you pretend? You döan't love the mäaster, and you do love me. Why shudn't we be happy together?"
"We—I can't."