From within the high dark hedges of that square enclosure that she and her father now called the Queen’s Garden, there fell a gleam of soft, yellow light. Cautiously she stole nearer and nearer, peeped through the bushes and caught her breath at what she saw. The grassy space was crowded with Indians, a dense throng of kneeling worshippers, far too many ever to have found places within Master Simon’s house. Their backs were toward her and their faces upturned toward the light that fell upon their glistening, coppery skins. The priest was standing before them, his head was bowed and he was reading in an unknown language from a little book. Against the hedge behind him had been placed the table, covered with a white cloth and decked with such flowers and berries as were still to be found in the garden. And upon the table burned what seemed a myriad of bayberry candles, great ones and small, their broad, clear flames rising straight upward in the still air and giving forth a faint sweet perfume like incense. Their soft light fell like a benediction upon the strange scene, on the priest’s white hair, on the dark faces of the Indians, on the wet shining leaves of the sheltering hedge. She watched entranced and was hardly conscious of a movement at her side until she turned to see that Roger Bardwell had stolen close to her and was kneeling to look through the same opening between the branches. So absorbed was she that she did not in the least notice when he took off his homespun coat and put it about her shoulders to shield her from the chill air that foretold the coming dawn. The birds were beginning to chirp and sing in the forest and the blackness of the night was faintly changing to grey. The priest finished his reading and turned to give the final blessing. Margeret, looking up at his worn white face, saw suddenly, beyond it, another that made her start back in terror. At a gap in the hedge behind the priest stood Samuel Skerry watching the forbidden ceremony with dark, eager little eyes. She gasped, looked again and saw only the empty place. Could she have imagined that ill-omened vision? She turned to question Roger but he had been gazing down toward the sea and had seen nothing. The Indians rose from their knees and went forward, one by one, to say farewell. Finally the last one slipped away; there remained behind only a boy who was putting out the candles and removing the flowers; the service was over. Master Simon came striding down the path and stopped at the edge of the Queen’s Garden. “Dear friend,” said the priest, hurrying to him, “can you forgive that I have done this forbidden thing and brought such danger on you and your daughter and your garden? It has meant much, so much to those I must leave behind!”