"An' I'm punished for't. Wheer should I turn now? I've thrawed awver your manner o' worship an' I'm sick o' the Gosp'lers, for 'twas theer God as led me to this an' brot all my trouble 'pon me. He caan't be no God worth namin', else how should He a treated that poor limb, Michael Tregenza, same as He has. That man had sweated for his God day an' night for fifty years. An' see his reward." "Come back, come back to the auld road again, Joe, an' leave the ways o' God to God. The butivul, braave thing 'bout our road be that wance lost 'tedn' allus lost. You may get night-foundered by the way, yet wi' the comin' o' light, theer's allus a chance to make up lost ground agin an' keep gwaine on." "A body must b'lieve in somethin', else he'm a rudderless vessel seemin'ly, but wi' sich a flood of 'pinions 'bout the airth, how's wan sailorman to knaw what be safe anchorage and what ban't?" Mary argued with him in strenuous fashion and increased her vehemence as he showed signs of yielding. She knew well enough that religion was as necessary to him in some shape as to herself. Already a pageant of winter sunset began to unfold fantastic sheaves of splendor, and over the horizon line of the western moors the air was wondrously clear. It faded to intense white light where the uplands cut it, while, above, the background of the sky was a pure beryl gradually burning aloft into orange. Here waves of fire beat over golden shores and red clouds extended as an army in regular column upon column. At the zenith, billows of scarlet leaped in feathery foam against a purple continent and the flaming tide extended from reef to reef among a thousand aerial bays and estuaries of alternating gloom and glow until shrouded and dimmed in an orange tawny haze of infinite distance. In the immediate foreground of this majestic display, like a handful of rose-leaves fallen out of heaven, small clouds floated directly downward, withering to blackness as they neared the earth and lost the dying fires. Beneath the splendor of the sky the land likewise flamed, the winding roadways glimmered, and many pools and ditches reflected back the circumambient glory of the air. In a few more minutes, Mary and Joe reached Sancreed churchyard and soon stood beside the grave of Joan Tregenza. "The grass won't close proper till the spring come," said Mary; "then the turf will grow an' make it vitty; an' uncle's gwaine to set up a good slate stone wi' the name an' date an' some verses. I planted them primroses 'long the top myself. If wan abbun gone an' blossomed tu!" She stooped to pick a primrose and an opening bud; but Joe stopped her. "Doan't 'e pluck 'em. Never take no flowers off of a graave. They'm all the dead have got." "But they'll die, Joe. Theer's frost bitin' in the air already. They'll be withered come marnin'." "No matter for that," he said; "let 'em bide wheer they be." The man was silent a while as he looked at the mound. Then he spoke again.