THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
was the other passion working in him to-night, the older more universal feeling which he shared in common with the trees and the moon. And this was the middle of the night, the hour she had called her own. They stood on the edge of it. Memories and half memories whispered in his mind—Blanche in the ancient shade of cedars speaking to him of the odd hours, moonrise at sunset, and yellow of dawn. He lifted her bodily into saddle and stood holding her with both hands.
She leaned down, resting hers on his shoulders. "What time is it?" she whispered.
The white silly little face of the timekeeper with busy hands measuring moments was to be their last glimpse of the common world that night. They had left the common world behind on the other side of the forest, and were riding out through the raveling fringe of trees into a naked and radiant plain. A ripple of light was beginning to flow among the pines. The moon, that had been so slow in revealing herself, was growing golden and bold above the heads of the "Sugar Loafs," until, as the riders left the last of the trees, she released her hold of the mountain tops and dared to float out into heaven. She stood high, and poured her radiance down straight. Far on the left it showed him a freckled rolling country, a cliff looking the height of a child's
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