The Burning Secret

Were they animals, or people, or was it merely the ghostly hand of the wind that wove together all this rustling and crackling and whirring? He listened. It was the wind gently moving the tree tops. No, it wasn’t, it was people—now he could see distinctly—couples arm in arm, who came up from the lighted city to enliven the darkness with their perplexing presence. What were they after? He could not make out. They were not talking to each other, because he heard no voices. All he could catch was the sound of their tread on the gravel and here and there the sight of their figures moving like shadows past some clear space between the trees, always with their arms round each other, like his mother and the baron in the moonlight.