bone, will
show you round."

It was in response to this advice that Mark and Esther set out on a
golden May evening to explore Wych Maries. Esther had continued to be
friendly with Mark after the Pomeroy affair; and when he came to live at
Meade Cantorum she had expressed her pleasure at the prospect of having
him for a brother.

"But you'll keep off religion, won't you?" she had demanded.

Mark promised that he would, wondering why she should suppose that he
was incapable of perceiving who was and who was not interested in it.

"I suppose you've guessed my fear?" she had continued. "Haven't you?
Haven't you guessed that I'm frightened to death of becoming religious?"

The reassuring contradiction that one naturally gives to anybody who
voices a dread of being overtaken by some misfortune might perhaps have
sounded inappropriate, and Mark had held his tongue.

"My father was very religious. My mother is more or less religious.
Stephen is religious. Miriam is religious. Oh, Mark, and I sometimes
feel that I too must fall on my knees and surrender. But I won't.
Because it spoils life. I shall be beaten in the end of course, and I'll
probably get religious mania when I am beaten. But until then--" She did
not finish her sentence; only her blue eyes glittered at the challenge
of life.

That was the last time religion was mentioned between Mark and Esther,
and since both of them enjoyed the country they became friends. On this
May evening they stood by the signpost and looked across the shimmering
grass to where the sun hung in his web of golden haze above the edge of
the wold.

"If we take the road to Wych Maries," said Mark, "we shall be walking
right into the sun."

Esther did not reply, but Mark understood that she assented to his
truism, and they walked on as silent as the long shadows that followed
them. A quarter of a mile from the high road the path reached the edge
of the wold and dipped over into a wood which was sparse just below the
brow, but which grew denser down the slope with many dark evergreens
interspersed, and in the valley below became a jungle. After the bare
upland country this volume of May verdure seemed indescribably rich and
the valley beyond, where the Greenrush flowed through kingcups toward
the sun, indescribably alluring. Esther and Mark forgot that they were
exploring Wych Maries and thinking only of reaching that wide valley
they ran down through the wood, rejoicing in the airy gre