As he moved softly out across the middle, and a little ripple moved before him, the water was invisible.

There was only a fathomless gulf, as deep below as the sky was high above, pricked with stars.

As he turned his head this way and that the great trees, high overhead, seemed less real than those two immeasurable spaces above and beneath.

There was a dead silence everywhere, only broken by the faint suck of the water over his shoulder, and an indescribably sweet coolness that thrilled him like a strain of music.

Under its influence, again, as last night, the tangible, irritating world seemed to sink out of his soul; here he was, a living creature alone in a great silence with God, and nothing else was of any importance.
He turned on his back, and there was the dark figure on the bank watching him, and above it the great towered house, with its half-dozen lighted windows along its eastern side, telling him of the world of men and passion.
"Look," came the priest's voice, and he turned again, and over the further bank, between two tall trees, shone a great silver rim of the rising moon.