The twilight descended.  He rested his lips on her hair, and
carried her, without speaking, until he reached the open down.  He
had often slept here himself, alone, and on his wedding-night,
and he knew that the turf was dry, and that if you laid your face
to it you would smell the thyme.  For a moment the earth aroused
her, and she began to chatter.  "My prayers--" she said anxiously.
He gave her one hand, and she was asleep before her fingers had
nestled in its palm.  Their touch made him pensive, and again he
marvelled why he, the accident, was here.  He was alive and had
created life.  By whose authority? Though he could not phrase it,
he believed that he guided the future of our race, and that,
century after century, his thoughts and his passions would
triumph in England.  The dead who had evoked him, the unborn whom
he would evoke he governed the paths between them.  By whose
authority? 

Out in the west lay Cadover and the fields of his earlier youth,
and over them descended the crescent moon.  His eyes followed her
decline, and against her final radiance he saw, or thought he