"The little wood beside the stream beyond Wyvelstoke," said Diana softly, "that dear place where Love found us--in the dawn--and you clasped the little locket about my neck, Peregrine." "Which you don't wear now, Diana!" "Which you shall put back--one day--soon, Peregrine." "Why did you take it off, Diana?" "Because!" she answered. "Because of--what?" I persisted. "Just--because!" she answered in the old tantalising way. And so we sat a little while looking into each other's eyes. "By Goles!" exclaimed the Tinker so suddenly that we both started, having clean forgotten him for a while. "'Tis good to be young, but 'tis better--aye, much better, to be in love, that it is! And--you may be mighty fine folk up to London, but you'll always be just children to me--my children o' the woods!" "And so, Jerry, we'll stay with you until we are married if you'll have us?" "Have you?" he repeated, a little huskily. "Have you? Why, Lord love ye--I feel that proud, an' s' happy as I don't know what--only--God bless ye both--Amen!" So saying, he arose rather abruptly and hastened off to harness Diogenes. "Diana," said I, drawing her to me, "Diana, what do you mean by 'because'?" And standing submissive in the circle of my arms she answered: "Because you love me so truly, Peregrine, doubt cannot make you love me less. But because of your doubt I have grieved, and because I grieved I ran away, and because I ran away you came to find me, and because of this I am happy. But because I am--a little proud also, I will not wear your love-token until you know how unjust are your doubts, and because I am a woman you shall not know this until I choose. But because I love you in spite of your doubts as you love me because you are so nobly generous, I am yours for ever and ever. So here's the answer--here's the meaning of 'because' and now--won't you kiss me, Peregrine?" Thus stood we awhile amid the whispering leaves, and by the touch of her mouth doubt and heaviness were lifted from me. Then hand in hand she brought me where we might behold the barn, no longer a place of evil, gloomy and sinister, but transformed by the kindly sun into a place of beauty, dignified by age. "Good-bye, old barn!" she whispered. "Look, Peregrine, it is so very, very old, and cannot last much longer--and I love it because it was there my man fought for me; it was there he showed me how truly generous, how wonderful is his love for me--O Peregrine, my gorgio gentleman, what a man you are! Good-bye, old barn!" she whispered. "Good-bye!" And when I had led forth my post horse and tethered him behind the four-wheeled cart, we clambered in all three, Diana sitting close beside me so that the kindly wind ever and anon would blow a tress of her fragrant hair across my lips to be kissed. And so the dead went back to his grave and my demons fled awhile.