Even in Calderbury streets he hoped that no one would notice him, and he pulled his hat well down over his eyes with some vague idea of disguising himself. But after almost colliding with another cyclist he gave this up as impracticable; besides, a few people saw him, anyway, calling to him out of windows and doorways as he went by: “Good night, doctor … Heard the news, I suppose?” — to which, because he could not think of anything else and also because he was incapable of not returning cordiality, he answered in a strained voice: “Good night, Jim … yes … Good night, Dick … Good night, Mrs. Hargreaves.” Once, at a street corner, he overheard a man telling a small group of people: “There’s a big battle going on in the North Sea — our Tom heard it from the telephone exchange. The German fleet is sinking …”

Presently he came to the field path. It was a lovely night, warm from the earth; and he felt, as he always did when he had seen recent death, a mystic communion with all things living and dead, as well as a perception of their own communion; so that, through such a prism of consciousness, he could sense life in a dead stone and death in a living tree. As he came to the edge of the disused quarry he happened to kick a pebble and heard it fall a hundred feet to the rocks and undergrowth at the base of the cliff. Perhaps the universe had been made as chancily as that.

Soon, through the trees, he saw the shape of the wooden hut, and beside it, waiting for him, Leni. He could not see her clearly, but as he approached she came to him, and they stood for a moment, searching each other’s eyes till light was born in them, and it seemed to him then that the universe might even more probably have been made like that.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“About ten minutes. I didn’t mind.”

“We must move on. Did anyone see you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It doesn’t really matter, I suppose, once we’ve got away.”

They descended the Knoll by a path that led them to the other side of it, whence, at the foot, the water meadows stretched to the Marsland Road. The night was pale over those meadows, and only the sudden lighting of cigarettes marked pairs of lovers couched in the long grasses; there was no sound but secret voices under the mist and the hum of the bicycle as David pushed it. He was hoisting it over the last stile when the Cathedral chimed the three quarters. “Now we’re all right,” he said, stooping to light the lamp when they reached the highway. Warm dust-scented air lingered over the graveled road. “Have you ever ridden on the back of a bicycle? You’ll find it quite easy. Put your left foot on the axle step and your right knee on the mudguard — you’ll manage.”