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He had waited but five minutes or so as he judged, but indeed it was difficult to keep time in this place where time seemed to have stopped, when she appeared on the other side of the clearing or open space.

She was naked and held a long twist of black hair in her hand as she came lightly over the ground towards the pool.

At first he did not think of a ruse or trick for she was exceedingly lovely and seemed to him of an immortal cast, and he knew there could be no woman of such a make in these rough and lonely parts; so he stared, his heart panting, thick and frightening, believing he looked on something unearthly.

The woman came through the tall flowers, the nature of which he could not tell by reason of the moonlight dazzle, and so to the edge of the pool where she sat and dipped in her long limbs, and then sank beneath the water and began swimming across so that only her head and the black hair floating like a weed, showed.

And then the young man recovered his senses.

He said: ‘It is a mortal woman,’ and prepared to run down the bank. But the herb woman held him back with a surprising strength.

‘If you stir or say a word, she will vanish.’

And so, because he still, against his will, feared some magic, the young man stayed his impetuous movement and stared down through the leafage on to the pool where her face floated like a water lily and her hair like a dark leaf; and looking down into that face, which remained still for a moment on the surface of the water with closed eyes and slightly parted lips and all the light of the moon turning the flesh to an unearthly look of silver, he knew himself lost, and he tried to turn and escape away through the haunted darkness of Ballote Wood, but the old beldame clung to him and impeded him and bade him watch, and still watch, so he stared again down to the pool.

The woman stirred in the limpid waters; her shoulders, her bosom, her arms and hands rose from out the pool. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. Her wet hair clung, a dark tracery, on the whiteness of her body.

She stared up at the oak tree behind which he hid, as if she saw him, yet he thought that it was impossible that she could do so.

‘It is an earthly woman,’ he repeated, ‘but who?’

‘Follow her and see,’ said Mother Cloke, stretching up to his ear.

The bather swam across the pool again, and bending the tall flowers that grew on the bank, stepped out into the sheer moonlight which clothed her from head to foot as modestly as a veil. He saw her blurred by this radiance; he could observe only that she was tall and curved and very slender and surely unearthly after all…

He watched her wring out the long black hair and saw how the drops sparkled like diamonds as they fell from her hands to nothingness about her feet.

She crossed the open space of blossoming, gleaming weeds, and entered the grove of young trees on the other side, and he, watching her, saw her pick up some garment and put it about her shoulders.

He looked round for Mother Cloke, but the herb woman had gone and he made little matter of that. The adventure that was to have been but a phantasy or a delusion had proved real enough.

Agile and resolute he lowered himself down the bank and he also, skirting the pool, crossed the clearing. As he neared the grove where the woman robed herself, she moved away, but not so far as to be lost among the trees, and not so rapidly but that he could follow her. And follow her he did, keeping a few paces behind until they had left the wood and come out into the park. He could see her very clearly. It was a night of sullen warmth and he observed that her hair was already dry and strands blowing loose over the light cloak or robe that she wore.

He followed her to a grove of chestnut trees and directly to the honeysuckle porch of the Dower House and there she turned and faced him as if she had known all along that he was behind her, and yet he had flattered himself that he had been very discreet, hiding continually behind the trees and in shrubs, and walking very softly.

When she paused in the porch he was still some paces away, half behind one of the chestnut trees, but she beckoned with her hand, which was like a lily waving in the wind, and he came forward and stood at the gate of her little garden which was packed with carnations that gave forth a strong night perfume.

‘I am Julia Roseingrave,’ she said, ‘what do you want with me?’

He did not answer for he did not know, and he felt, too, ashamed of himself, and remorseful that he had been taken in by the old woman’s trick, if trick it were and not some strange chance, and so he stood mute, which was not his usual way with women.

‘Oh, you are but a dullard,’ said Julia Roseingrave, coolly, ‘and I liked Ballote Wood better before you came prying there.’

At that she went into the darkness of the Dower House and shut the door in his face.