I stood very still, for one of the stones had moved. One of the Virgins had come to life! No. It was someone else there ... someone with a lanthom! There was more than one lanthom ... and lights moved eerily about the stones. A figure stood out clearly for a moment; he was wearing a helmet of some sort. I watched him intently; then I saw other figures. They were standing within the circle of stones and they all wore helmets.

I had to know who they were, and what they were doing, so I hastily put on some clothes and left the house. Over the lawns I went to the meadow but when I arrived there was no one there. In the starlight I saw the stones, ghostly, looking like women caught and petrified in the dance. And not far distant the old mine which was causing such controversy.

A sudden thought came to me. Could it have been Saul and his friends meeting to discuss what they would do next? What more appropriate spot to choose for such a meeting!

But they were gone now. I stood within the circle of the stones and while I was wondering what Saul and his friends would do next I could not help thinking of the Six Virgins and chiefly of the seventh who had not come dancing on that fatal night.

Shut in, built in, and left to die!

Stupid fanciful thoughts; but what could one expect when one stood in the center of a ring of stones in starlight?

I didn't hear Johnny come in that night—I must have been asleep when he did—so I didn't have a chance to talk to him.

He rose late next morning and went out. He rode into Plymouth and went to his club there. He must have spent the afternoon gambling.

We afterwards found out that he left the club round about midnight. But he did not come home.

Next morning I saw that the single bed in the dressing room had not been slept in, and I waited all day for him to come in because I had made up my mind that I couldn't delay talking to him any longer.

The next night he did not come either. And when another night and day passed and he had still not returned we began to suspect that something had happened to him.

We made inquiries and it was then we discovered that he had left his club at midnight two nights before. We thought at first that he might have been seen to win money, followed and robbed; but he had lost heavily and had had little money with him when he left.

The search began; the inquiries started.

But no one could trace Johnny. And when a week passed and there was still no news I began to realize that he had indeed disappeared.

7

I was a woman without a husband, yet I could not call myself a widow. What had happened to Johnny? It was a mystery as baffling as that which Judith had provided when she fell down the stairs.

I tried to remain calm. I told Carlyon that his father had gone away for a while and that satisfied him; he had, I suspected, never been very fond of Johnny. I tried to brace myself for two possibilities: his return, or a life spent without him.

There was no immediate talk of opening the mine. That would come later, I suspected. I was being given a short respite on account of the shock of my husband's disappearance.

As I had in the old days, I took my problems to Granny. She scarcely ever left her bed now and it grieved me to see her growing a little more frail every time we met. She made me sit by her bed while she looked searchingly into my face.

"So you've lost your Johnny now," she said.

"I don't know, Granny. He may come back."

"Is that what you want, lovey?"

I was silent for I could never lie to Granny.

"You'm wondering what will happen next, eh? This 'ull like as not bring the other home."

I nodded.

"And parson's daughter?"

"Mellyora thinks of me before herself."

Granny sighed.

"This 'ull decide him," she said. "K this don't bring him back, nothing will."

"We can wait and see. Granny."

She leaned forward and gripped my hand. "Do you want your husband back, lovey?"

She wanted a straightforward answer; and she was very anxious.

"I don't know," I said.

"Kerensa," she went on, "do you remember ... ?"

Her voice had sunk to a whisper and she gripped my hand still more firmly. I sensed that she was on the point of telling me something which was of the utmost importance.

"Yes, Granny?" I softly prompted.

"I've been turning over in my mind ..."

Again she paused and I looked at her intently.

She closed her eyes and her lips moved soundlessly as though she were talking to herself.

"Do you remember," she said at length, "how I dressed your hair, set it up in coils and we put in the comb and mantilla Pedro gave to me?"

"Yes, Granny. I shall always keep it. I dress my hair that way often and wear the comb and mantilla."

She sank back on her pillows and a puzzled look came into her eyes.

"Pedro would have liked to see his Granddaughter," she murmured. But I knew that was not what she had been on the point of saying.

Mellyora and I sat alone in my sitting room.

How like the old days it was, those days when we had been together in the parsonage. We both felt this and it drew us closer together. "This is a waiting time, Mellyora," I said. "Life will change soon."

She nodded, her needle poised; she was making a shirt for Carlyon and she looked daintily feminine and helpless working there.

"No news of Johnny ... day after day," I mused. "When do you think they will give up the search?"

"I don't know. I suppose he will be listed as a missing person and will remain so until we have some news of him."

"What do you think has happened to him, Mellyora?"

She did not answer.

"There was a lot of feeling against him in St. Larnston," I went on. "Do you remember how angry he was that day when someone threw a stone at him? The people of St. Larnston might have killed him because he would not open the mine. Their livings were at stake. They knew I would be veiling to open it."

Tow ... Kerensa."

"I shall be the mistress of the Abbas now ... unless... ."

"The Abbas belongs to Justin, Kerensa; and it always did."

"But he has gone away and Johnny administered everything in his absence. Until he comes back. ..."

"I do not think he will ever come back. I haven't told you this before but he is trying to come to a decision now. He believes that he will stay in Italy and enter a religious order."

"Is that so?" I wondered if I succeeded in keeping the joy out of my voice. Justin a monk! Never to marry!

I suddenly remembered Mellyora, sitting at home, patiently waiting like Penelope. I looked at her sharply. "And you, Mellyora? You loved him so much. Do you still?"

She was silent. "You are so practical, Kerensa. You would never understand me. I should seem so foolish to you."

"Please try to make me understand. It is important to me ... your happiness I mean. I have grieved for you, Mellyora."

"I know you have." She smiled. "Sometimes you have been angry when Justin's name was mentioned. I knew it was because you were so sorry for me. Justin was a hero of my childhood. It was a child's adoration I had for him. Picture it. He was the heir to the big house; and the Abbas meant something to me as it did to you. To me he seemed just perfect; and I suppose my most cherished dream was that one day he would notice me. He was the prince of the fairy tale who should have married the woodcutter's daughter and made her a queen. It grew out of a childish fantasy. Do you understand?"

I nodded. "I thought you would never be happy again when he went away."

"So did I. But ours was a dream idyll. His love for me and mine for him. If he had been free we should have married and perhaps it would have been a good marriage; perhaps I should have gone on adoring him. I should have been a good meek wife to him; he would have been a courteous tender husband; but there would always have been this dream quality about our relationship, this bloodlessness, this unreality. You have shown me that."

"How so?"

"With your love for Carlyon. That fierce passion of yours. That jealousy I have seen when you think he cares too much for me or Joe. It is a wild all-consuming thing, your love; and that is real love, I have come to believe. Think of this, Kerensa, if you had loved Justin as I thought I did, what would you have done? Would you have said farewell? Would you have allowed him to go? No. You would have gone away with him, or you would have stayed here and fought defiantly for the right to live together. That is love. You never loved Johnny in that way. But you once loved your brother like that; you loved your Granny; and now all your love is for Carlyon. One day, Kerensa, you will love a man and that will be the fulfillment of your being. I believe I too shall love that way. We are young yet, both of us; but I took longer to grow up than you did. I am grown up now, Kerensa, and we are neither of us fulfilled. Do you understand me? But we shall be."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because we have grown together, Kerensa. There is a bond between us, a line of fate which we cannot break."

"You have an air of wisdom this morning, Mellyora!"

"It is because we are both free ... free from the old life. It is like a beginning again. Johnny is dead, Kerensa. I am sure of it. I believe what you say is right. Not one but several people killed him because he stood between them and their living. They murdered him that they and their wives and children might live. You are free, Kerensa. The hungry men of St. Larnston have freed you. And I am free ... free of a dream. Justin will enter a religious order; no longer shall I sit and dream as I sew, no longer wait for a letter, no longer start up at the sound of arrival. And I am at peace. I have become a woman. It is like gaining freedom. You too, Kerensa, for you haven't deceived me. You married Johnny, you suffered him for the sake of this house, the position he gave you, for the sake of being a St. Larnston. You have what you want and all the installments are paid. It is a new beginning for you as well as for me."