THE MIDSUMMER MOON It was very late that night, just as the first long rays of a full moon streamed across a dreaming sea, that the door that led out of the conservatory at The Ship softly opened, and a slim figure, clad in a long, dark garment, flitted forth.

Neither to right nor left did it glance, but, closing the door without sound, slipped out over the grass almost as if it moved on wings, and so down to the beach-path that wound steeply to the shore.
The tide was rising with the moon; the roar of it swelled and sank like the mighty breathing of a giant.

The waters shone in the gathering light in a vast silver shimmer almost too dazzling for the eye to endure.

In another hour it would be as light as day.

A few dim clouds were floating over the stars, filmy wisps that had escaped from the ragged edges of a dark curtain that had veiled the sun before its time.