“It is indeed,” replied Gerald soberly, “and it stands only for the greater miracle that you have wrought, you Americans. Wonderful things beyond the mere planting of flowers have been done by those who dwelt here. Of all the tales told me by my own grandfather and by Master Sheffield I like best the story of how Master Simon saved the French priest at such great risk to himself, yet would not flee from peril because, as he said, ‘I have planted a garden here in the wilderness and I must abide to see what sort of fruit it bears.’ Ah, such a garden as he planted in this new world, he and his kind, sowing the seeds of liberty and justice and freedom for all! Their children and their children’s children have tended what he planted, Master Sheffield and his good comrades have carried the seed far, and here is the fruit at last, a new country for a free people. I wonder at you all, little Clotilde, at you and at the line of my forbears. Why did all that work so prosper, both here in your garden and in the world without?” “Master Simon knew why,” answered Clotilde simply. She led him down to the sundial and lifted the trailing vines that grew so close about the pedestal. There she showed him the words that Master Simon’s hand had carved about the edge of the circle, cut so deep and so long ago, for posterity to read at last: “I have planted, you have watered, but God gave the increase.” CHAPTER XX THE SEA-ROAD TO CATHAY It is not always the end of a tale when the two most familiar figures in it come to their wedding day; the business of living happily ever after is a more complicated matter than that. The work that those two are to do together must be safely launched before we can turn aside from them, knowing, more or less, how the rest of their story is to be told. Clotilde and Gerald Radpath had chosen to go their way together, but, even for some time after they were married, they stood hesitating a little, not quite sure as to which way the appointed road was to lead.