After supper that evening the young minister unpacked his books and was about to arrange them, but drifted to the window instead. He paused for a minute or two, with his face close to the pane, and then flung up the sash. A faint north wind breathed down the harbor, scarcely ruffling the water. Around and above him the frosty sky flashed with innumerable stars, and behind the bark’s masts, behind the long chine of the eastern hill, a soft radiance heralded the rising moon. It was the new moon, and while he waited, her thin horn pushed up, as it were, through the furze brake on the hill’s summit, and she mounted into the free heaven. With upturned eyes the young minister followed her course for twenty minutes, not consciously observant, for he was thinking over his ambitions, and at his time of life these are apt to soar with the moon. Though possessed with zeal for good work in this small seaside town, he intended that Troy should be but a stepping-stone in his journey. He meant to go far. And while he meditated his future, forgetting the chill in the night air, it was being decided for him by a stronger will than his own. More than this, that will had already passed into action. His destiny was actually launched on the full spring tide that sucked the crevices of the gray wall at the garden’s end. A slight sound drew the minister’s gaze down from the moon to the quay-door. Its upper flap still stood open, allowing a square of moonlight to pierce the straight black shadow of the garden wall. In this square of moonlight were now framed the head and shoulders of a human being. The young man felt a slight chill run down his spine. He leaned forward out of the window and challenged the apparition, bating his tone, as all people bate it at that hour. “Who are you?” he demanded, “and what is your business here?” There was no reply for a moment, though he felt sure his voice must have carried to the quay-door. The figure paused for a second or two, then unbarred the lower flap of the door and advanced across the wall’s shadow to the centre of the bright grassplot under the window. It was the figure of a young woman. Her head was bare and her sleeves turned up to the elbows. She wore no cloak or wrap, to cover her from the night air, and her short-skirted, coarse frock was open at the neck. As she turned up her face to the window, the minister could see by the moon’s rays that it was well-favored. “Be you the new preacher?” she asked, resting a hand on her hip and speaking softly up to him. “I am the new Independent minister.” “Then I’ve come for you.” “Come for me?” “Iss; my name’s Nance Trewartha, an’ you ’en wanted across the water, quick as possible. Old Mrs. Slade’s a-dyin’ to-night, over yonder.” “She wants me?” “She’s one o’ your congregation, an’ can’t die easy till you’ve seen her. I reckon she’s got something ’pon her mind; an’ I was to fetch you over, quick as I could.”