"It is so light here, and we shall be heard—"
Jasper reached out, and caught her hand. She did not flinch or resist him.
"Quick! Down the steps."
They fled away, hand in hand, like a couple of children.
[XXIV]
They were on Stonehanger Common among the furze bushes with the moonlight shining down on them, and the silence of night over the land. The horizon was an horizon of silvery distances, woodland, sea, and hill. There was no wind moving, and the air was fresh and fragrant with dew.
Jasper still held Nance's hand. They had taken one of the grass paths that wound down over the common to the fields and woods. The moonlight was on their faces, and they said but little for the moment. They had passed suddenly into a new world, and were somewhat awed by its strangeness and its beauty.
There was an audacity, too, about the thing that thrilled them both. Youth called to youth. They looked at each other as though there were wonderful things to be discovered in each other's eyes.
"What have you to tell me?"
Jasper had taken off his hat, and was walking bareheaded beside her. At such a season every gesture has an exquisite significance. There is homage, passionate utterance, in every movement of the head and body.