But tonight there were no splashes. Probably the duty was already done. Stephen remembered incongruously this local habit, and was at once relieved and disappointed. Too many people prowling in their gardens might be dangerous. On the other hand, there was a certain safety in a multitude of splashes. One more would have made no difference.

There were no splashes now, and scarcely any sound: only the fretful muttering of distant traffic, the occasional rumble of buses on the far-off bridge, and the small plops of fishes leaping at the moon. Close to Stephen was an unobtrusive munching in the wired space where Joan’s rabbits were kept. A buck rabbit lay hunched in the moonlight masticating contentedly the last remnants of the evening cabbage. Another nosed at the wire-netting, begging without conviction for further illicit supplies. Stephen stooped down automatically and rubbed his nose.

But for the moonlight and the present slackness of the tide the moment was propitious. Stephen walked back more boldly into the conservatory. “You take the feet,” he said.