For lack of a calendar, the homelanders had not the habit of keeping anniversaries. They never knew on what day of the year a thing had happened--did not even know that there was a year. But they knew the four seasons. They remembered that the apple-trees had been in blossom when Thol slew the dragon, and that since then the apple-trees had blossomed four times. And it seemed good to them that at the close of a day when those blossoms were again on those branches, a feast should be held in that part of the valley where the great deed had been done. Shib, who organised the feast, was anxious that it should be preceded by a hymn in praise of the slayer god. He thought this would have a good effect on the rising generation. But Thol opposed the idea, and it was dropped. Shib had also been anxious that Thia should attend the feast, sitting at Thol’s right hand and signifying to the young the blessedness of the married state. Thol promised that he would beg her to come; and he did so, as a matter of form, frequently. But Thia of course did not grace the convivial scene. It was at a late hour of the moonlit night that Thol, flushed with adulation, withdrew from the revels, amidst entreaties that he should remain. He was still wearing the chaplet of flowers that Afa had woven for him. Afa herself was clinging to one of his arms, Moa to the other, as he went round to the eastern spur of the hill; and Ola and Ispa and many others were footing around lightly and lingeringly, appealingly. It was rather the thought of Thia’s love for him than of his for her that withheld him from kissing these attendants before he bade them good-night. For his own sake he wished, as he climbed the hill, that they would not stand cooing so many farewells up to him so loudly. Thia might not understand how true he was to her. He hoped she was sleeping. But she was awake. Nor was he reassured by the laughter with which, after a moment, she greeted him. She was looking at his head. He became suddenly aware that he had not shed that chaplet. He snatched it off. She laughed the more, but with no kindness in the sound of her laughter. ‘O Thia,’ he said, after a search for words, ‘be not wroth against those maidens! I love none of them.’ ‘Is that not cruel of you, O Thol? Do they not love you?’ ‘Though they love me, O Thia, I swear to you that I love not them.’ ‘Why should you not?’ she laughed. ‘Are you so foolish that you think I should be sorry?’ ‘O Thia,’ he rebuked her, ‘you speak empty words. You speak as though you did not love me.’ ‘I have long ceased to love you, O Thol,’ she said in a low voice. He stared at her blankly in the moonlight. His slow mind strove hard. ‘But you are my wife,’ he said at last. ‘I am your husband. O Thia, is it indeed true that you have ceased to love me?’ ‘O Thol, it is most true.’