And I'm sorry, but we can
hear every word you say."
She laughs again. "It makes nothing," she says "you know already
if we love each other."
Then he puts the ring on her finger, and they stand together. The
white of his flannel coat sleeve marks no line on the white of her
dress; they stand as though cut out of one block of marble.
Then a faint greyness touches the top of that round hole, creeps up
the side. Then the hole is a disc of light a moonbeam strikes
straight through it across the grey green of the circle that the stones
mark, and as the moon rises the moonbeam slants downward. The
children have drawn back till they stand close to the lovers. The
moonbeam slants more and more; now it touches the far end of the
stone, now it draws nearer and nearer to the middle of it, now at
last it touches the very heart and centre of that central stone. And
then it is as though a spring were touched, a fountain of light
released. Everything changes or, rather, everything is revealed.
There are no more secrets. The plan of the world seems plain, like
an easy sum that one writes in big figures on a child's slate. One
wonders how one can ever have wondered about anything. Space
is not; every place that one has seen or dreamed of is here. Time is
not; into this instant is crowded all that one has ever done or
dreamed of doing. It is a moment and it is eternity.
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