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Before him lay a moon-washed open space and beyond that rose tall, green ranks of corn, a sight that filled the raccoon's heart with joy. He quickly crossed the clearing and, bearing down a stalk, stripped it of its husk and sank his teeth into the milky kernels. Ringtail dearly loved sweet corn and he ate until his round, furry sides were distended and he could hold no more.
Garth shook his head, and, when at last the manservant had reluctantly taken his departure, he remained for a long time sitting very still, staring out across the moon-washed garden. Presently he stirred restlessly.
On the middle of the limb, blackly silhouetted against the golden disk, crouched a raccoon, who sniffed the spring air and scanned the moon-washed spaces. From the marshy spots at the foot of the hill, over toward the full-fed, softly rushing brook, came the high piping of the frogs, a voice of poignant, indeterminate desire.
Afterward you might have heard a long, awed sibilance go about the windows overhead as the watching Rue Saint Jacques breathed again. Francois de Montcorbier ran. He tore at his breast as he ran, stifling. He wept as he ran through the moon-washed Rue Saint Jacques, making animal-like and whistling noises. His split lip was a clammy dead thing that napped against his chin as he ran.
He was reading aloud, spelling out the words, as does a child, and following with huge finger. Outside a musket cracked; a bullet wanged against the wall; there was the crisp trickle of dislodged mortar. Then he slewed his chair round to the loop-hole, and felt for his musket. The light poured in upon the moon-washed head, the noble brow, and calm eyes peering forth.
She drew herself up to her feet, stretching her cramped muscles. The night was warm and the room felt stiflingly hot. She looked longingly through the window to where the garden lay drenched in moonlight, with cool-looking alleyways of moon-washed paths threading the black gloom of overhanging trees, ebony-edged in the silver light.
And, to his own astonishment, he found himself saying, "I'm afraid that's where I come in!" As he spoke, he remembered that night of the eclipse oh, those moon-washed depths, those stupendous serenities of Law and Beauty which, together, are Truth! How passionately he had desired Truth. And now Mrs. Houghton was saying "Consider the stars." "If I could only tell her!" he thought.
Gone the chance of escape. There was no getting by that formidable figure. What was she to do? Best go back where she had come from. But the sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. He seemed to be lost in revery. He stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape, his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. How his golden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight!
He had seldom been out at night, and never in a carriage; and there was something terrifying to him in this flight through the silent moon-washed fields, where no oxen moved in the furrows, no peasants pruned the mulberries, and not a goat's bell tinkled among the oaks.
He released his hold of her abruptly and began pacing up and down savagely, like some caged beast. Nan stood staring out over the moon-washed sea with eyes that saw nothing. The five minutes they had snatched together from the rest of life were slipping by each one a moment of bitter and intolerable anguish. Presently Peter swung round and came to her side. But he did not touch her.
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