"It's very quiet to-night," Mary said.
"Extraordinarily still," he answered.
There was no one in the village street and there were no lights shining from any of the windows, except from the bedroom of a cottage near the sea.
"They've all gone to bed very early, haven't they?" he said, glancing about the deserted street.
"But it isn't early, Quinny," she replied. "It's quite late. It must be nearly ten o'clock. We had dinner much later to-night because your train was so long in getting in!"
"Well, they're missing a gorgeous night, all of them," he exclaimed, holding her tightly.
They walked to the fisherman's shelter and stood against the iron rail on top of the low cliff. The moon had made a broad path of golden light across the bay, from the shingle to the pinnacle on the nearer of the two headlands, and they could see the golden water flowing through the hole in the cliff.
"I'd love to bathe now," Mary said. "I'd love to swim all along that splash of moonlight to the caves and back again...."
A belated sea-gull cried wearily overhead and then flew off to its nest in the cliffs.
"The water's awfully black looking outside the moonlight," Henry exclaimed.