t some are quicker
than others or had learned much beforehand.... Where is Elspeth?"

"Oh, she is safe, Glenfernie!"

"I wanted her body safe--safe, warm, in my arms!"

"Spirit and spirit. Meet spirit with spirit!"

"No! I crave and hunger and am cold. Unless I warm myself--unless I
warm myself--with anger and hatred!"

"I wish it were not so!"

"I had a friend.... I warm myself now in the hunt of a foe--in his
look when he sees me!"

Gilian smote her hands together. "So Elspeth would have loved that!
So the smothered God in you loves that!"

"It is the God in me that will punish him!"

"Is it--is it, Glenfernie?"

He made a wide gesture of impatience. "Cold--languid--pithless! You,
Robin, Strickland, Alison Touris--"

Gilian looked at her basket of marigolds, pinks, and pansies. "That
word death.... I bring these here, but Elspeth is with me everywhere!
There is a riddle--there is a strange, huge mistake. She must solve
it, she must make that port of all ports--and you and I must make
it.... It is a hard, heroic, long adventure!"

"I speak of the pine-tree in the blast, and such as you would give me
pansies! I speak of the eagle at the crag-top in the storm, and you
offer butterflies!"

"Ah, then, go and kill her lover and the man who was your friend!"

Glenfernie rose from the step, in his face strong anger and denial. He
stood, seeking for words, looking down upon the seated woman and her
flowers. She met him with parted lips and a straight, fearless look.

"Will you take half the flowers, Glenfernie, and put them for
Elspeth?"

"No. I cannot go there now!"

"I thought you would not. Now I am Elspeth. I love her. I would give
her gladness--serve her. She says, 'Let him alone! Do you not know
that his own weird will bring him into dark countries and light
countries, and where he is to go? Is your own tree to be made thwart
and misshapen, that his may be reminded that there is rightness of
growth? He is a tree--he is not a stone, nor will he become a stone.
There is a law a little larger than your fretfulness that will take
care of him! I like Glenfernie better when he is not a busybody!'"

Alexander stared at her in anger. "Differences where I thought to find
likeness--likenesses where I thought to find differences! He deceived
me, fooled me, played upon me as upon a pipe; took my own--"

"Ha!" said Gilian. "So you are going a-hunting for more reasons than
one?--Elspeth, Elspeth! come out of i