"That their laws should fetter us! That we, at the first spring of life, should be tripped by their old engagements, their aimless institutions! Oh--! We disregard it." "I am yours. So far--yes." "So far? Isn't that all?" "But they--If they want to part us--" "What can they do?" "I don't know. What _can_ they do?" "Who cares what they can do, or what they will do? I am yours and you are mine. What is there more than that? I am yours and you are mine--for ever. Do you think I will stop for their little rules, for their little prohibitions, their scarlet boards indeed!--and keep from _you_?" "Yes. But still, what can they do?" "You mean," he said, "what are we to do?" "Yes." "We? We can go on." "But if they seek to prevent us?" He clenched his hands. He looked round as if the little people were already coming to prevent them. Then turned away from her and looked about the world. "Yes," he said. "Your question was the right one. What can they do?" "Here in this little land," she said, and stopped. He seemed to survey it all. "They are everywhere." "But we might--" "Whither?" "We could go. We could swim the seas together. Beyond the seas--" "I have never been beyond the seas." "There are great and desolate mountains amidst which we should seem no more than little people, there are remote and deserted valleys, there are hidden lakes and snow-girdled uplands untrodden by the feet of men. _There_--" "But to get there we must fight our way day after day through millions and millions of mankind." "It is our only hope. In this crowded land there is no fastness, no shelter. What place is there for us among these multitudes? They who are little can hide from one another, but where are we to hide? There is no place where we could eat, no place where we could sleep. If we fled--night and day they would pursue our footsteps." A thought came to him. "There is one place," he said, "even in this island." "Where?" "The place our Brothers have made over beyond there. They have made great banks about their house, north and south and east and west; they have made deep pits and hidden places, and even now--one came over to me quite recently. He said--I did not altogether heed what he said then. But he spoke of arms. It may be--there--we should find shelter....