They decided to find their way through the lanes to Alum Bay, and then,
keeping the cross in sight, to return over the downs, with the moon-path
broad on the water before them. For the moon was rising late. Twilight,
however, rose more rapidly than they had anticipated. The lane twisted
among meadows and wild lands and copses--a wilful little lane, quite
incomprehensible. So they lost their distant landmark, the white cross.

Darkness filtered through the daylight. When at last they came to a
signpost, it was almost too dark to read it. The fingers seemed to
withdraw into the dusk the more they looked.

'We must go to the left,' said Helena.

To the left rose the downs, smooth and grey near at hand, but higher
black with gorse, like a giant lying asleep with a bearskin over his
shoulders.

Several pale chalk-tracks ran side by side through the turf. Climbing,
they came to a disused chalk-pit, which they circumvented. Having passed
a lonely farmhouse, they mounted the side of the open down, where was a
sense of space and freedom.

'We can steer by the night,' said Siegmund, as they trod upwards
pathlessly. Helena did not mind whither they steered. All places in that
large fair night were home and welcome to her. They drew nearer to the
shaggy cloak of furze.

'There will be a path through it,' said Siegmund.

But when they arrived there was no path. They were confronted by a tall,
impenetrable growth of gorse, taller than Siegmund.