n
Moffatt certainly could not feel richer than she. And then the months
ahead! Well--one could get dizzy on one's own heights. So Priscilla
calmed herself by a day of strenuous shopping and looked forward to the
evening with Boswell.

A dim drizzle set in late in the afternoon, and there was a chill in the
air that penetrated sharply. The mist transformed everything, and, to
tired, overexcited nerves, the real had a touch of the unreal. The park
glistened: the tender new green on tree, bush, and grass looked as if it
had just been polished, and the early flowers stood crisply on their
young stalks.

At the point where once she had met poor Jerry-Jo McAlpin, Priscilla
paused and was taken into control by memory and the long-ago Past. Quite
unaccountably, she longed to have her mother, even her father, know of
her wellbeing. Surely they would forgive everything if they knew just how
things had turned out for her! She almost wished she had decided to go
back to the In-Place before she started on her trip abroad. She could
have made them understand about her and poor Jerry-Jo. Was old Jerry
waiting and waiting? Something clutched Priscilla sharply. The loneliness
and silence of the Place Beyond the Winds enfolded her like a compelling
dream. How they could patiently wait, those home folks of hers! And how
dear they suddenly became, now that she was going into the new life that
promised her her Heart's Desire!

Then she decided: since she could not go to them she must write to Master
Farwell, he had never answered her last letter, and beg him to tell them
all about it. He would go, she felt sure, and, by some subtle magic, she
seemed to see him passing along the red-rock road, his long-caped coat
flapping in the soft wind, his hair blowing across his face, the dogs
following sociably. He'd go first to old Jerry's, and then afterward, an
hour, maybe, for it would be hard for Jerry McAlpin--he would go to
Lonely Farm by way of the wood path that led by the shrine in the open
place--was the skull still there with the long-dead grasses in its ears?
It would be night, perhaps, when the master reached the farm; maybe the
star would be shining over the hemlock----

At this point Priscilla paused and caught her breath sharply. She had
come out of the park by the gateway opposite Boswell's apartment, and
just ahead of her, across the street, was a thin, stooping figure with
caped coat flapping in the rising wind, and hair blowing