"Those words I was about to speak, dear friend, are still my best answer," replied Jeremy, "and what more to say I know not! God's saint, St. Thomas à Kempis, saith: 'This is a _favour to Thy friend_, that for love of Thee he may suffer and be afflicted in the world, how often soever and by whom soever Thou permittest such trials to befall him!' Perchance He may suffer these words to comfort thy sore spirit, Percival, since assuredly thou hast verily long since been accounted His 'friend!'" A shiver ran through the young chaplain's frame, but he made no answer. The shades of night gathered about the desolate churchyard, and the grave-stones began to gleam faintly white in the ghostly light of the late-rising moon, which, appearing slowly above the distant crags, warned the friends at last of the lateness of the hour; and they rose from the turf where they had long been sitting, first in silence, then in deep converse. A new light of hope and strength dawned on Percival's worn countenance. "You have come to me verily as 'an angel strengthening me,' Jeremy," he said with a sad smile. "Now you have learned all I have to tell, and I do indeed bid you leave me. Fear not for me--I am yet strong to bear what remains. Go to Glyn Melen, and spend these three days with my Primrose and her mother, ere they take their journey to Bryn Afon. Stay--I would fain spend one last hour with her I love, by the Robbers' Cavern, and watch with her the outflowing of the river-springs once again--fair picture of our twin lives! Bid her, an she will, to turn aside on her journey, and under your escort meet me there on the eve of our wedding-day, three evenings hence, some while ere sunset, that on that eve of our day of looked-for bliss, now snatched from our grasp, we may tarry awhile together in that sweet spot, ere we pursue our journey to the valley. My Lady Bryn Afon will travel safely with her attendants, and you with us, dear friend, shall overtake them long ere they reach home. I will be there, hard by the spot where the springs burst forth from their caverns, by four of the clock, and will, with your permission, look to meet her there in your safe charge. Till then adieu, and prithee look not so sadly at leaving me! Methinks I feel God nearer than some hours since, and to Him I would fain yet say much in secret. Like some bird of passage pursuing its lonely flight across the midnight sky towards an unknown shore, so must I too face the black night alone, content not yet to see my goal, yet with faith to believe in the far-off shining of some distant horizon, where my feet may at length find firm footing." So with a last embrace the friends parted; and while Master Taylor pursued his way with aching heart in the dim moonlight towards Glyn Melen, Percival Vere wandered, he scarce knew whither, into the solitary places of the mountain heights, where the night winds alone might breathe to one another in softest whisper the secret communings