It seemed to be drawing itself together with strange, violent pangs, in
blind effort. It was getting stronger, it was re-asserting itself, the
inviolable moon. And the rays were hastening in in thin lines of light,
to return to the strengthened moon, that shook upon the water in
triumphant reassumption.
Birkin stood and watched, motionless, till the pond was almost calm,
the moon was almost serene. Then, satisfied of so much, he looked for
more stones. She felt his invisible tenacity. And in a moment again,
the broken lights scattered in explosion over her face, dazzling her;
and then, almost immediately, came the second shot. The moon leapt up
white and burst through the air. Darts of bright light shot asunder,
darkness swept over the centre. There was no moon, only a battlefield
of broken lights and shadows, running close together. Shadows, dark and
heavy, struck again and again across the place where the heart of the
moon had been, obliterating it altogether. The white fragments pulsed
up and down, and could not find where to go, apart and brilliant on the
water like the petals of a rose that a wind has blown far and wide.
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