The little company fell silent, walking in the moonlight upon a road bare as a sword.... Behind Joan and Aderhold receded the old life, sunk away the town, the road to Hawthorn and Hawthorn and its church, the Oak Grange and Hawthorn Forest, people a many, the two Carthews, Master Thomas Clement, Alison, Cecily, other names, folk a many, things done and suffered, old life. Before them stretched something new, strange life, bare as yet of feature as the road before them. Their imaginations were not busy with it; they left it veiled, but yet they felt its presence.... Undoubtedly, even at this moment, even earlier than this moment, their escape might be discovered. Already the hue and cry might be raised. Even now the finders might be on their track. They might be seized long ere they could reach the port, or, having reached it, before they could reach the Silver Queen. The Silver Queen might be searched before it sailed. They might be dragged back. The gallows and the stake might be cheated no moment of their prey. They might again see Hawthorn faces. They knew all this, but their thought did not dwell upon it. Their minds saw dimly something new, bare yet of feature. The man of the hawk walked musing beside Aderhold. At last he spoke. “We are not far from the crossroads. When we are there you will go your ways and I shall turn and go back to the castle.... If we grow by means of all circumstance as it flows by and through us, how are you changed by what has lately passed?” “This summer,” said Aderhold, “I grew somewhat past bodily fear. I should like you to know that.” “I saw no great cowardice before.... How now do you feel toward your fellow man?” “My fellow man is myself.” “And toward that which we call God?” “As I did.... I seek that which is high within me.” The other nodded. “I understand....” They walked on in silence until they saw before them the crossroads. Aderhold remembered the ragged trees, the dyke-like bank, the stake through the heart of the suicide. The night was wearing late. The moon shone small and high. Charles’s Wain was under the North Star. The five came to a stand, and here the four said good-bye to the one. CHAPTER XXIII THE ROAD TO THE PORT