none had ever known to rest.

Above the two young cousins, scudding along that ridge between the
country and the town, three thin white clouds trailed slowly towards the
west-like tired seabirds drifting exhausted far out from land on a sea
blue to blackness with unfathomable depth.

For an hour those two rode silently into the country.

"Have we come far enough?" Martin said at last.

Thyme shook her head. A long, steep hill beyond a little sleeping
village had brought them to a standstill. Across the shadowy fields a
pale sheet of water gleamed out in moonlight. Thyme turned down towards
it.

"I'm hot," she said; "I want to bathe my face. Stay here. Don't come
with me."

She left her bicycle, and, passing through a gate, vanished among the
trees.

Martin stayed leaning against the gate. The village clock struck one.
The distant call of a hunting owl, "Qu-wheek, qu-wheek!" sounded through
the grave stillness of this last night of May. The moon at her curve's
summit floated at peace on the blue surface of the sky, a great closed
water-lily. And Martin saw through the trees scimitar-shaped reeds
clustering black along the pool's shore. All about him the may-flowers
were alight. It was such a night as makes dreams real and turns reality
to dreams.