Joan never resented the outspoken criticisms on her parent. She listened, but rarely joined the discussion. The whole matter speedily sank to a position of insignificance. Her own mind was clear, and the deadlock only cut off one more outer interest and reduced Life's existing influences to a smaller field. She drew more and more into herself, slipped more and more from out the routine life of Drift. She became self-centered, and when her body was not absent, as happened upon most fine days, her mind abstracted itself to extreme limits. She grew shy of fellow-creatures, found no day happy of which a part had not been spent beside a cross, showed a gradual indifference to the services of the church which not long since had attracted her so strongly and braced the foundations of her soul. There came at last a black Sunday when Joan refused to accompany Mary and the farmer to morning worship at Sancreed. She made no excuse, but designed a pilgrimage of more than usual length, and, having driven as far as the church with her uncle and cousin, left them there and walked on her way. Even the fascinations of a harvest festival failed to charm her; and the spectacle of fat roots, mighty marrows, yellow corn and red apples on the window-ledges, of grapes and tomatoes, flowers and loaves upon the altar, pulpit and font, did not appeal overmuch to Joana--a fact perhaps surprising. With a plump pasty of meat and flour in her pocket and one of Uncle Chirgwin's walking-sticks to help her footsteps, Joan went on her way, passed the Wesleyan Chapel of Sancreed, and then maintained a reasonably direct line to her destination by short cuts and field paths. She intended to visit Mên Scryfa, that famous "long stone" which stands away in a moor croft beyond Lanyon. She knew that it was no right cross, but she remembered it well, having visited the monument frequently in the past. It was holy with infinite age, and the writing upon it fascinated her as a mystery fascinates most of us. The words, "_Rialobrani Cunovali Fili_," which probably mark the fact that Rialobran, son of Cunoval, some Brito-Celtic chieftain of eld, lies buried not far distant, meant nothing to Joan, but the old gray-headed stone, perhaps the loneliest in all Cornwall, was pleasant to her thoughts, and she trudged forward gladly with her eyes open for all the beauties of a smiling world.