After dinner, he asked Mary to walk to the village with him.

"Isn't it late?" Mrs. Graham objected.

"Oh, no," he answered. "It's a beautiful moonlight night, and I feel I want to stretch my legs. I've been cooped up in the train best part of the day. Come along, Mary!"

"I'll just get my coat," she said.

When they were ready, he put his arm in hers, and they walked down the long lane, past the copse and through the pine trees, to the village.

"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.

"Ummm!" she answered.

They shivered a little in the cold air, and instinctively they drew closer to each other. Beneath them, lying high on the shingle, were the trawlers, lying ready for the morning when the fishermen would push them down into the sea.

"Tom Yeo and Jim Rattenbury are going to have a motor put into their trawler," Mary said. "It'll make a lot of difference to them. They'll be able to go out even when there isn't any wind."

Henry did not answer. He had a strange sense of fear that was inexplicable to him. He seemed to be outside himself, outside his own fear, looking on at it and wondering what had caused it. He felt as if something were pulling at him, trying to force him to look round ... and he was afraid to look round.... He shuddered violently.

"Are you cold, Quinny?" Mary said anxiously, turning to him.

"Yes," he answered quickly, wishing to account for his sudden shivering in a way that would not alarm her. "We'd better go back!..."

What was the matter? Why was he so suddenly afraid and so strangely afraid? If it had been dark, very dark, and he had been alone ... but it was bright moonlight ... so bright that one could almost see to read ... and Mary was with him ... and yet he was afraid to look round at the White Cliff. Something inside him, apart from him, seemed to feel that if he looked up the long steep path over the White Cliff ... he would see something.

"Come on, Mary!" he said, turning to go, and turning in such a way that he could not see the Cliff.

They walked rapidly up the street.... "That'll warm me," he explained to Mary ... and as he walked, he was afraid to look back.

"What the devil's the matter with me?" he kept saying to himself until they reached the end of the lane leading to the Manor.

"You're walking too quickly, Quinny!" Mary said, holding back.

"I'm sorry, dear," he exclaimed, slackening his pace reluctantly.

He had never had this sensation before ... as if a fear had been stuck on to him, a fear that was not part of his nature, a thing outside him trying to get inside him.... He forgot that Mary had complained of the rapidity with which he was walking, and he set off again. The pine trees had a black, ominous look, and the sound of the wind blowing through their needles was like continuous moaning.

"Are you trying to win a race, Quinny?" Mary said.

He laughed nervously. "No. I'm ... I'm sorry!..."

As they passed the copse, he shut his eyes, and so he stumbled over the rough ground and almost fell.

"What is it, Quinny?" Mary demanded, catching hold of him.

"It's nothing," he said. "I'm tired, that's all...."