"Thank you," she said. "I shouldn't have left the others. I didn't think he had noticed." She walked slowly towards the tavern, Henry beside her. The past year had made her taller, filled her out. Yet the sweetness of her expression was the same, and the vitality in her face and eyes. "He's been after you then?" She nodded. "Him and a couple of others." It was just a turn in the path to sight of the tavern. Henry halted. "You seem to forget I'm proscribed," he reminded her. "I don't care! I like you--always have." Her voice became tragic, "Why did you go into that awful learning house?" "I got tired of wondering--wondering what kept the food in the bins fresh, how it got from the hoppers in the fields to the bins. What made the light and heat. Where the water came from." "But the Old Ones did it all by magic!" "What kind of magic?" His face had a slightly mocking expression. "If that was so why are things beginning to break down? Magic should go on forever." * * * * * From the direction of the tavern came sounds of shouting. He smiled at her. "You'd better go on before they think I've turned you into a bat." "Henry--" she began, but she had lingered too long. The whole group rounded the turn, trotting, their faces twisted in superstitious fury. They raised their arms when they sighted the two. Each hand had a stone in it. "She's one of them too!" screamed fat, malicious Hecla, seeing a chance to vent her envy. "They're planning something! Throw! Throw!" Her voice was a hysterical shriek. Henry saw the stones in the air. Grasping the girl's wrist he drew her into the brush beside the path. He stopped his flight under an ancient tree and let go her wrist. "See," he said, "even to speak to me is dangerous." She tossed her head and brushed the hair from her brow, her eyes scornful. "I don't care. I'm sick of them." "You can go back. Give them some fancy tale about my hexing you, but say that you crossed two sticks or something and got away." She looked him squarely in the face, her own composed and determined. "I'd rather stay with you." He dropped to a jutting rock and scraped at the dead leaves with the heel of his sandal. "It's not nice," he began, "the life I live. Hiding in the woods by day, sneaking into deserted houses or taverns at night for food and warmth. I've been doing it all summer now, and that's bad enough. In a month the Masters of these upper levels will be closing their houses and the taverns, moving to town for the winter. Everything on the lower levels will be taken up. They expect me to be starved into surrender." Theta dropped to her knees beside him. "I'd rather be with you. I've wanted to be with you ever since I first saw you. But you never seemed to notice me."