“Harriet has fallen in love with him! I believe it happened the night he came to Crabtree--the dreadful night after the storm when I brought you the soup--I mean, when Our Agnes--Wiggie--Harriet----” She floundered, agonised and helpless. He stopped, looking at her with a frown. “When _you_ brought me the soup?” “Yes. No!” She was almost in tears at the unmeant revelation. “It was Harriet! _She_ made it, and there were cockroaches--a tin of something--I washed the pan.” He held doggedly to his question. “When _you_ brought me the soup?” “I carried it in--that was all--and you didn’t know. You thought it was the servant! But I only found the tray-cloth. It was Harriet----” “Bother Harriet!” he said cruelly, and put his hands on her shoulders, trying to see her face. “It was _you_ who fed me, _you_ who lighted the fire and tidied up those horrible papers, and were good to me all round? And I didn’t know!” “No, you didn’t know!” She let her pride slip through soft fingers and looked up at him, all the pain of that gone hour in her sobbing voice. “But you ought to have known--oh, you ought, you _ought_! I wanted to be good to you more than anything in the world, and you wouldn’t let me. I asked you--I begged in my heart--how was it you did not hear? I did not dare to speak aloud. You had said I did not understand--do you remember?--and I was afraid. So when I found you did not hear, I went away, and you let me go. You let me go!” “I was out on a far road, sweetheart, and I had lost you in the dark. I doubt I haven’t got back to you, even yet!” “Come soon!” she whispered, in his arms. Behind them, a crystal voice broke into singing, and, turning, they looked together through the last Green Gate of Vision. On the hill-side a little child was standing with his face turned to the bar of sunset, as if he sang to listening souls behind that dying door of gold. Far out of sight, the Quettas stood arm in arm, risking their Little Great Quetta in the autumn mist. There was nothing framed by the Gate of Vision but the sleeping land and the singing child. He sang the Wander-Song of the Quettas, that was Lancaster’s Song of Home. “What can lambkins do, All the keen night through? Nestle by their woolly mother, The careful ewe. What can nestlings do In the nightly dew? Sleep beneath their mother’s wing Till dawn breaks anew. If in field or tree There might only be Such a warm, soft sleeping-place Found for me!” With the last note he stayed, looking up at the door of Heaven closing before him. Almost he might have seen the long years of wandering and struggle, searing glory and usuried fame, before he came to his last, soft sleeping-place on the Arm of God. “And _my_ place?” Lanty whispered. “It is cold in the dark.” “It is warm in my heart,” she said. CHAPTER XXVIII HAIL AND FAREWELL!