Something made Hale look full at her, and there were tears clinging to her lashes as if ready to fall and betray her, but at the same moment they came out upon the hilltop and stood looking at the world together. “I wonder if _they_ had spent their lives up here instead of living in a valley of their own shadows, would everything have been different?” said Jane, yet perfectly unconscious that she had spoken. John Hale held a branch of the winged seeds in his hand and looked from it again to her face. “If glory is given to a bush in autumn that is denied summer beauty, why may it not be so with people as well? Being under a spell we have spent the best part of the day in the valley, but now that we have seen the full light of the afternoon sun, we can never go down again, you and I. Jane, you must marry me now, to-day; not even the shadow of one more nightfall shall come between, and, moreover, you shall never go back to the black clothes that speak of the valley. Neither of us need wear that badge,—it has been discounted by thirty years’ service.” With a swift, passionate gesture he drew her to him so close that her breath came forcibly. Could this be the same man who had first accepted her reasons for delay, and then intrenched them with others of his own? As she leaned against him, glad to be powerless, she closed her eyes,—was she twenty or fifty-four? She could not tell. “You must go to work; you must write again,” she said when he had released her, though it was only to hold her at arm’s length, and then cover her eyes and brow with kisses that made them both tremble,—“a book full of all we have both thought and put away until now; but before that we must go on a journey so as to make sure that we may do as we please.” “Shall we go to Venice?” asked Hale, touching the red scarf that was knotted above her throat; “but where is the red cap?” “No, not so far back or away,” she answered slowly, shaking her head, “the red cap is too far back, and besides with motor-boats spinning about it wouldn’t be the same; we should be disappointed, and it’s foolish to court disappointment. Yet, John, I really think we might go to Stratford once more in spring, and see if it feels the same as it did to sit on the lovely damp, green grass and watch the Avon go by. Possibly we might take cold now,” and then they both laughed as they walked to and fro, swinging the basket between them as children do May baskets in springtime. Presently a floe of ice clouds high in air crossed the sun, and at the same time something passed over Jane Mostyn’s face. Dropping her hold of the basket, she fell back a few steps, and giving a little shiver she could not repress, said: “John, we have forgotten the two houses in the valley. How can we be free and live on the hilltop? We can do without the money, but the tradition,—ah, what shall we do?”