There was a little dormer window in the thatch, open. It might be that of the room in which she was sleeping. A cottager would not sleep in a room with the window open. He tried to remember what the cottage was like inside, and what rooms would be most likely to be given up to visitors. It seemed to him of the utmost importance to have it settled which was Viola's room.
He moved round to the front of the cottage, treading softly on the turf lest a sound should reveal his presence. Perhaps she was awake. It was not part of their secret that he should come out at night to gaze at her window. He must not reveal himself.
The wood extended a little way on to the moor by the side of the cottage. It was the point that had hidden it from them in the afternoon. But it faced open ground across a narrow fenced-in strip of garden. The whole of its front could be seen obliquely from the wood.
He stood in the shadow of a giant holly--and saw her.
She was sitting at a window, her chin resting on her hand, looking out across the moor to where the sea lay gleaming in the radiance of the moon. She was in white; her dusky hair lay about her shoulders and framed her young face, in which the dark eyes were set.
It was only a glimpse that he had of her, for he stole silently away, abashed at having surprised a revelation not meant for his eyes.
But it was like the glimpse that he had had of the fairies dancing. It thrilled and calmed him at the same time. He knew now that the fairies had not revealed all the secret to him. Viola was the secret, towards which all his life and all that he had learned of nature had been leading him. Viola lay at the warm, sweet heart of it all. Everything was changed by that vision he had had of her, and soon he would see her and tell her so.
They met in the woodland path which Harry had taken in the night. He was there before the time appointed and threw himself down on the grass to await her coming. He could see some distance along the path from where he had stationed himself. It was narrow just here and the thick overhanging branches of the trees made a green shady tunnel flecked with quivering points of light.
He waited in a state of patient expectation, not greatly moved or stirred, but happy and contented. The time did not seem very long, though he waited for half an hour.