“Yes, it is best. The world grows so.” “Oh, to see green grass and English flowers!... But the child—the child! We would go farther and farther from where the child lies.... I know that we must go.” “Yes. She does not lie there. She does not stay there.” “No—she is here—she is everywhere.... Well, let us go bravely.” Giles and Ellice Herne went aboard the Eagle. Before sunset she had clapped on all sail and was moving swiftly from that island. It faded, faded. They lost the clump of palm trees marking the place of their hut, lost the outline of the tiny harbour, lost in the dusk the gleam of the beach and the white crests of the incoming tide. The Eagle was a good ship and a swift sailer. Back she came into her course. The bird that was her figurehead looked east, looked north, between it and its homing the grey and rolling Atlantic. Now she had bad weather and now she had good, but the good predominated. The ship was not crowded, as had been, six years before, the Silver Queen. Moreover, those aboard were preoccupied, the dissatisfied with their dissatisfaction, the hardier, more patient or farseeing sort, returning to England only to return thence to their new world, with their papers of representation, their arguments, and busy schemes. At first there was curiosity as to the castaways and how they had preserved life, alone, on that morsel of land. That satisfied, attention turned in each on board to his own matters, or to matters that seemed cognate. The rescued were quiet folk who kept to themselves; doubtless they were dazed by long privation and loneliness, and by this unexpected salvation.... Aboard were several women, the captain’s wife, and one or two others of the bolder sort who would go with their husbands to whatever new worlds might be discovered. These helped Joan to fitter clothing than any she possessed. She came back to Aderhold in a linsey kirtle and bodice, a small white cap, and with a kerchief folded across her bosom. “Hawthorn again,” she said with a sob in her throat. He, too, had been given clothing. He was dressed plainly, like a clerk. No one was by, the soft dusk closing in. They stood for a moment and within them rose the vivid shape of the past. They smelled again the fern and mould of Hawthorn Forest; they heard again the drone of the bees, the singing of the stream past the fairy oak; they heard again the distant church bells. Rose the great image, grave and golden, of the six years past, rose the vision of the child, rose old memories, tendernesses, fears, rose forebodings, prophecies, realizations. It was dusk, the wind making a low, sustained music. They came to each other’s arms, they embraced closely, straining each to each with passion. They kissed, the tears stood in the eyes, fell upon the cheeks of each. It was like a farewell, and it was like a meeting....