"In old romances one walked into an inn or house by the road--always saying, 'It is by the road that goes on as it went before, and I presently again with it!' But never again as it was before, and never again I as before! For just there befalls the adventure that sets one climbing to a new road." Sweet Rocket vale opened before them. Each time they looked it grew fairer, and that, they had begun to see, was because it was not separated from anything. Said Anna Darcy, presently: "Do you know Morris's _Earthly Paradise_? Do you remember the Story of Rhodope? I used to know almost all of it by heart. When Rhodope is born the countryman, her father, dreams, and he seems to himself to be standing with the mother, watching "... a little blossom fair to see." Then:-- "The day seemed changed to cloudiness and rain, And the sweet flower, whereof they were so fain, Was grown a goodly sapling, and they gazed Wondering thereat, but loved it nothing less. But as they looked, a bright flame round it blazed, And hid it for a space, and weariness The souls of both the good folk did oppress, And on the earth they lay down side by side, And unto them it was as they had died. "Yet did they know that o'er them hung the tree Grown mighty, thick-leaved, on each bough did hang Crown, sword or ship, or temple fair to see; And therewithal a great wind through it sang, And trumpet blast there was; and armor rang Amid that leafy world, and now and then Strange songs were sung in tongues of outland men. "It is something like that that I feel for any place--and perhaps now it will be so for this and every place! It was such a blossom and now it is such a tree. All hangs therein, peoples and nations, things past and things to come! When I go away I shall find it so in any place." "That is what you will do--and I also. Everywhere that Tree, that Man, that God!" The vale widened at the overseer's house. The sycamore by the river stretched in the sun its great arms of white and brown, and these and the blue vault made a pattern. A dozen turkeys crossed the path in a stately, slow-stepping procession. Mary Carter was singing in the house, and little Roger singing after her. As they approached the tree and the bench around it other voices reached them; then one voice reading aloud. They saw the two Danes seated there--Frances, reading a letter. "So I _did_ travel with you and Mr. Dane. It was so wonderful--it is all around me now! I don't clearly remember little, sharp bits of it, but I remember the whole. It has shown me a lot of things. I don't any longer mind living. It's funny, but father, too--" Frances looked up as Curtin and Anna stepped under the tree. Bright tears stood in her eyes. She shook them away and smiled at the two. "It's a letter from the crippled boy I told you about--"