"You shall go down to the House by the Sea," said Jay. "You shall go when the moon is next full over the sea that drowned our house. You shall come from the east, along the rocky path, as you used to come, between the foxgloves; you shall play at being a god, coming between the stars and the sea. And I will play at being a goddess, as I used to play at being a ghost, and I will run to meet you from the west, and the high grasses and the ferns shall whip my knees, and the thistles shall bow to me, and the sea shall be very calm and say no word, and there shall be no ship in sight. And we will go down the steep path to the shore, and we will stand where the sand is wet, and look up to where our drowned House used to be. And there shall be no facts any more, only the ghosts, and the dreams. Oh, surely it has never happened before--this meeting of Secret Friends--and surely no friend ever loved her friend as I love you, and surely there never was so little room for sin and disappointment in any love as there is in ours. Surely there are no tears in the world any more, and no Brown Borough, and no War. I don't care if I go hungry every day till we meet, I don't care if I have nothing but hated clothes to wear in my Secret World. I don't care if there are six changes on the journey to the sea, and at every change I miss my connection. I don't care if the end lasts only a minute, because the minute will last for ever, there are no facts any more. Because of you the little bothers of the world are gone, and the big bothers never did exist, because of you. Oh, I can say what I mean at last, and if it's nonsense--I don't care, because of you...." Presently she said, "And now I wonder if I am very proud or very much ashamed of having spoken." "You said once," Mr. Russell reminded her, "that life was just a bead upon a string. Well, does it much matter whether one bead is the colour of pride or the colour of shame? Does one successful bead more or less matter, my dear? I think it's all a succession of explanations, more or less lucid, and all different and all confusing. A string of beads more or less beautiful, and all unvalued. We don't know that any of the explanations are true, we don't know that any of the beads have any worth. We only know that they are ours...." "I don't care if I trample my beads in the mud," said Jay. "Now let's go home and think." When she and Chloris got home that evening to Eighteen Mabel Place, Chloris barked at a man who was waiting outside the door. He was a young man in khaki, with one star; he looked very white, and was reading something from his pocket-book. "Great Scott, Bill," said Jay. "I thought you were busy sapping in France. Were you anywhere near Kew?" I do not know if you will remember the name of young William Morgan. I think I have only mentioned him once or twice.