scents rose from the flower-beds. The grass was dripping with dew.
"Let us go through the pine wood," she said. She had thought to return that way with Renny.
They spoke little as they went along the bridle path beneath the pines. Her mind was engaged with its own unhappy thoughts. Finch's was filled with the sadness of life, its reaching out, its gropings in the dark, its partings. It was cold under the trees. From a cluster of hazels came the troubled talking of small birds passing the night there on their migration to the South.
Finch flashed the light among the branches, hoping to discover the small things perching. His attention was diverted to a more distant sound, as of footsteps moving among the pines.
"What are you listening to?" whispered Alayne.
"I thought I heard a twig break. Someone in there. Wait a second." He left her and ran softly padding toward the sound.
She strained her ears to listen, her eyes following the moving beam of the electric torch. The sound of Finch's padding steps ceased. The light was blotted out. She was in black silence except for the infinitesimally delicate song of a single locust on a leaf near her. She was frightened.
She called sharply: "Finch! What are you doing?"
"Here! It was nothing."
The torch flashed again; he trotted back to her. "One of the men hanging about." He thought: "Why was Renny hiding in the wood? Why didn't he turn up at the house? If looks could kill, I'd be a dead man! Gosh, he looked like Gran!"
The Hut lay in darkness, save for starlight sifting among the trees. A tenuous mist hung among their trunks, weighted with chill autumnal odours, dying leaves, fungus growths such as wood mushroom and Indian pipe, and the exhalations of deep virgin soil.
Alayne opened the door. Dark and cold inside. Eden had gone to bed early. He might have left the lamp burning and put wood on the fire! Finch flashed the
