now, back in the dim library, Anne and Richard!

"I stayed," she said, "because they were speaking out there of
Crossroads. I have had a letter, too, from Sulie. She says that the
situation is desperate."

"Yes. They need me. And I ought to go. They are my people. I feel that in
a sense I belong to them--as my grandfather belonged."

"Do you mean that if you go now you will stay?"

"I am not sure. The future must take care of itself."

"Your mother would be glad if your decision finally came to that."

"Yes. And I should be glad. But this time I shall not go for my mother's
sake alone. Something deeper is drawing me. I can't quite analyze it. It
is a call"--he laughed a little--"such as men describe who enter the
ministry,--an irresistible impulse, as if I were to find something there
that I had lost in the city."

She held out her hand to him. "Do you know the name I had for you when
you were at Crossroads?"

"No."

"I called you St. Michael--because it always seemed to me that you
carried a sword."

He tightened his grip on the little hand. "Some day I shall hope to
justify the name; I don't deserve it now."

Her eyes came up to him. "You'll fight to win," she said, softly.

He did not want to let her go. But there was no other way. But when she
had joined the others on the terrace he made a wide detour of the garden,
and wandered down to the river.

It was not a singing river, but to-day it seemed to have a song, "_Go
back, go back_," it said; "_you have seen the world, you have seen the
world_."

And when he had listened for a little while he climbed the hill to tell
Austin and to tell--Eve.

CHAPTER XXII

_In Which Anne Weighs the People of Two Worlds._

"RICHARD!"

"Yes, mother, I'm here. Austin thinks I am crazy, and Eve won't speak to
me. But--I came. And to think you have turned the house into a hospital!"

"It seemed the only thing to do. Francois' mother had no one to take care
of her--and there were others, and the house is big."

"You are the biggest thing in it. Mother, if I ever pray to a saint, it
will be one with gray hair in a nurse's cap and apron, and with shining
eyes."

"They are shining because you are here, Richard."

Cousin Sulie, in the door, broke down and cried, "Oh, we've prayed for
it."

They clung to him, the two little growing-old women, who had wanted him,
and who had worked without him.

He had no words for them, for he could not speak with steadi