What it was for she knew not. She only knew that she was suited by the rain that dashed, by the bending fruit trees, striking the thatch with mossed boughs, the solemn roll of the thunder, the darkness and solitude. She paced the room, her arms lifted and crossed behind her head. At last a bit of unburned wood caught and sent up forked flames. Light and shadow danced about the walls. The grey and white cat came and walked with Joan, rubbing against her skirt. The thunder rolled. Outside, the murk of the day thickened toward evening. A hand fell across the door, then pressed the latch. The door swung inward; there was a vision of a muffled figure, behind it wind-tossed trees and up-towering clouds lit by lightning. “Who is it?” Joan cried sharply; then, as the man let drop the cloak he had been holding across his face, “Master Carthew!...” The firelight, sinking, left only the smouldering coals and the room almost dark. Joan, moving swiftly across the room, seized fresh brands and threw them upon the old. A flame leaped up; the place was fairly light again. She turned upon him. “To come here—to come here—” “Aye,” he answered, “to come here.” He unclasped his great cloak and let it drop on the settle, took off his steeple-crowned hat and set it on the cloak. He stood out, dark-clothed, plain as Master Clement himself in what he wore, with short-cut hair, with handsome features, haggard, flushed, and working. “Do you know whence I have come? I have come from leading men to the Oak Grange where they took and bound that atheist there and carried him away to gaol. You’ll walk no more with him in Hawthorn Forest.” Joan drew a heavy, painful breath. “I walked little with him in Hawthorn Forest. But when my father took the plague he came to him. He is a good man! Aye, I was in church and heard Master Clement—” “Nay, I think that you walked much. But now you will walk no more.” He came nearer to her. “Joan, put that Satan’s servant from out your mind! Turn instead to one who sinneth truly and puts oftentimes in peril his immortal soul, but is at least no misbeliever and denier of God’s Word. Joan—Joan!” He tried to take her in his arms. She was strong and broke from him. Behind her was a shelf with some pewter jugs and dishes and small articles of use. She put up her arm and snatched from it a good and keen hunting-knife; then stood, breathing quickly, the firelight reddening the blade in her hand. He gave a harsh and forced laugh. “Put it down, Joan! I did not mean to fright thee. I came to persuade—” “Nay, I’ll keep it by me,” said Joan. “Persuade me to what? To feel love for you? That, Master Carthew, you cannot do! But you could make me feel gratitude—” “If I took hat and cloak and went from out your door?” “Aye, just.” “I cannot.... No man ever loved as I love you.... Here, this dusk, this Sabbath.—Think if I am in earnest.... Joan, Joan! If I lose for thee my immortal soul—”