Mr. Quincunx leant upon his hoe and surveyed the speaker. It occurred to him at once that something was amiss. “Good Lord!” he thought to himself, “the fellow has been drinking. I must get him out of this garden as quickly as possible.” “She loves you,” Andersen went on, “because you are like a root. You go deep into the earth and no stone can resist you. You twine and twine and twine, and pull them all down. They are all haunted places, these houses and churches; all haunted and evil! They make a man’s head ache to live in them. They put voices into a man’s ears. They are as full of voices as the sea is full of waves.” “You are right there, my friend,” replied Mr. Quincunx. “It’s only what I’ve always said. Until people give up building great houses and great churches, no one will ever be happy. We ought to live in bushes and thickets, or in tents. My cottage is no better than a bush. I creep into it at night, and out again in the morning. If its thatch fell on my head I should hardly feel it.” “You wouldn’t feel it, you wouldn’t!” cried the stone-carver. “And the reason of that is, that you can burrow like a root. I shouldn’t feel it either, but for a different reason.” “I expect you’d better continue your walk,” remarked Mr. Quincunx. “I never fuss myself about people who come to see me. If they come, they come. And when they go, they go.” The stone-carver sighed and looked round him. The sun gleamed graciously upon the warm earth, danced and sparkled upon the windows of the cottage, and made the beads of sweat on Mr. Quincunx’s brow shine like diamonds. “Do you think,” he said, while the potato-digger turned to his occupation, “that happiness or unhappiness predominates in this world?” “Unhappiness!” cried the bearded man, glaring at his acquaintance with the scowl of a goblin. “Unhappiness! Unhappiness! Unhappiness! That is why the only wise way to live is to avoid everything. That’s what I always do. I avoid people, I avoid possessions, I avoid quarrels, I avoid lust, and I avoid love! My life consists in the art of avoiding things.” “She doesn’t want happiness,” pleaded the obsessed stone-carver. “And _her_ love is enough. She only wants to escape.” “Why do you keep bringing Lacrima in?” cried the recluse. “She is going to marry John Goring. She is going to be mistress of the Priory.” A convulsive shock of fury flashed across the face of Andersen. He made a movement that caused his interlocutor to step hurriedly backwards. But the emotion passed as rapidly as it had come.