“All the rest scairt, and she run slap into the lighthouse!” he was repeating, when she cut him short. “Come on,” she laughed, and, rising, ended their brief revel. They trooped after her to the kitchen, where she caught up a bundle from the floor. Hab wrested it from her arms, with the bow and flourish of a country dancer, and still laughing as in a game, she turned to Ella, and held out both hands. “Good-by,” she said. “I won’t say it!” rebelled the other violently, but next instant had clasped her in a bear-like hug. “Oh, my old precious, good-by! Yes, you’re right, you’re right!” The pair, still embracing, moved clumsily out through the doorway. Then Ella released her, crying between laughter and distress,-- “But you’ll be back!” She wrung the girl’s hand. “You’ll come back like old Douglas, time they give him the gold cane and the speech--” But the joke failed her, and the good creature fled into the house. Habakkuk, with his burden, was already climbing the slope. Anna beckoned to Miles, who followed her in bleak amazement, as if all his friends had turned to strangers, and all their doings to some alien by-play. Side by side, the two began the sharp ascent. “What’s all this, Anna?” he said reproachfully. “What does it mean?” She only laughed, stretched out a hand for help, and, falling back at arm’s length, made him pull her by main strength, tugging and slipping, up the tawny hillside. Not until he had paused for breath, high in the wind above house and field, would she answer. “It means I understand.” She looked away toward the sea, a strange, distant light upon her face. “It means I’m happy. It means--well, Tony showed the way.” Miles eyed her gloomily. “It means you’re going,” he said with bitterness. “That’s all I see. Oh, Anna! Do you think I could change over night?” She faced him with steady eyes but a wavering smile. “You seem to think I can!” she retorted. Then with that sudden elfin gravity, “When you were in the tower,” she said, “and we all thought--Miles, I began to see, then. You must risk a person. It’s like the wars. You must risk him, to find out all you--all he--” She paused with a little, helpless motion, studied the ground between them, then raised the light of her eyes. “We three settled it before you came. An old woman that Habakkuk knows--he’ll take me there in his wagon. No!” she laughed, “I won’t tell you where! But she’s been sick, and all alone. Afterwards I may come back to Ella--when you’re gone.” She tossed her radiant young head in the breeze, and the sunshine caught it like a flying standard. “So it’s all right, and nobody’s there to stop you any more, and you’ll become the great man, and the lamps won’t go out, and--” “Suppose,” he broke in, “suppose I didn’t become?”