When Joan recovered consciousness she found her head and neck wet where her stepmother had flung cold water over her. Thomasin was at that moment burning a feather under her nose, but she stopped and withdrew it as the girl's eyes opened.

"Theer, now you'll be well by night. He've gone aboard. Best to change your gownd, for 'tis wetted. Then I'll tell 'e what 'er said. Can 'e get upstairs?"

Joan rose slowly and went with swimming brain to her room. She still held her picture and her money. She took off her wet clothes, then sat down upon her bed to think; and as her mind grew clear, there crept through the gloomy shadows of the past tragedy a joy. It lightened her heart a moment, then vanished again, like the moon blotted suddenly from the sky by a rack of storm-cloud. Joan was full of the stupendous news. The shock of hearing her most unsuspected condition had indeed stricken her insensible, but it was the surprise of it more than the dismay. Now she viewed the circumstance with uncertainty, not knowing the attitude "Mister Jan" would adopt toward it. She argued with herself long hours, and peace brooded over her at the end; for, as his cherished utterances passed in review before her memory, the sense and sum of them seemed to promise well. He would be very glad to share in the little life that was upon the way to earth. He always spoke kindly of children; he had called them the flower-buds in Nature's lap. Yes, he must be glad; and Nature would smile too. Nature knew what it was to be a mother, Joan told herself. She was in Nature's hand henceforth. But her blue eyes grew cold when she thought of the morning. So much for St. Madron and his holy water; so much for the good angels who her dead parent had told her were forever stretching loving, invisible hands to guard and shield. "Mister Jan's be the awnly God," she thought, "an' He'm tu far aways to mind the likes o' we; so us must trust to the gert Mother o' the flowers." She accepted the position with an open heart, then turned her thoughts to her loved one. Having now firmly convinced herself that her condition would bring him gratification and draw them still nearer each to the other, Joan yearned unutterably for his presence. She puzzled her brains to know how she might communicate with him, how hasten his return. She remembered that he had once told her his surname, but she could not recollect it now. He had always been "Mister Jan" to her.

She went down to her supper in the course of the evening, and the great matter in her mind was for a while put aside before a present necessity. Action, she found, would be immediately required of her. Her father, before going from the kitchen after she had fainted, directed Thomasin to bid her never see his face again. She must depart, according to his direction, on the following day; for the thatched cottage upon the cliff could be her home no more.

"Theer weern't no time for talkin'; but I lay 'er'll sing differ'nt when next ashore. You bide quiet here till 'er's home agin. 'Tain't nachur to bid's awn flaish an' blood go its ways like that. An', 'pears to me, as 'tedn' the law neither. But you bide till he'm back. I be sorry as I spawk so sharp, but you was that bowldacious that my dander brawk loose. Aw Jimmery! to think as you dedn' knaw you was cheeldin'!"

"'Twas hearin' so suddint like as made me come over fainty."

"Ate hearty then. An' mind henceforrard you'm feedin' an' drinkin' for two. Best get to bed so soon's you can. Us'll talk 'bout this coil in the marnin'."

"Us'll talk now. I be off by light. I 'edn' gwaine to stop no more. Faither sez I ban't no cheel o' his an' he doan't want to see my faace agen. Then he shaan't. I'll gaw to them as won't be 'shamed o' me: my mother's people."

"Doan't 'e be in no tearin' hurry, Joan," said Mrs. Tregenza, thinking of the money. "Let him, the chap, knaw fust what's come along o' his carneying, an' maybe he'll marry 'e, as you sez, right away. Bide wi' me till you tells en. Let en do what's right an' seemly. That's the shortest road."

"Iss fay; he'm a true man. But I ban't gwaine to wait for en in this 'ouse.
To-morrow I'll send my box up Drift by the fust omblibus as belongs to
Staaft, an' walk myself, an' tell Uncle Thomas all's there is to tell.
He've got a heart in his breast, an' I'll bide 'long wi' him till Mister
Jan do come back."

"Wheer's he to now?"

"To Lunnon. He've gone to make his house vitty for me."

"Well, best to get Uncle Chirgwin to write to en, onless you'd like me to do it for 'e."

"No. He'll do what's right—a proper, braave man."

"An 'mazin' rich seemin'ly. For the Lard's love, if you'm gwaine up Drift, take care o' all that blessed money. Doan't say no word 'bout it till you'm in the farm, for theer's them—the tinners out o' work an' sich—as 'ud knock 'e on the head for half of it. To think as Michael burned a hunderd pound! Just a flicker o' purpley fire an' a hunderd pound gone! 'Tis 'nough to make a body rave."

The girl flushed, and something of her father's stern look seemed reflected in her face.

"He stawl my money. No, I judge his word be truth: he'm no faither o' mine if the blood in the veins do count for anything."

Joan went to bed abruptly on this remark, and lay awake thinking and wondering through a long night—thinking what she should say to Uncle Chirgwin, wondering when "Mister Jan" was coming back to her, and picturing his excitement at her intelligence. In the morning she packed her box, ate her breakfast, and then went into the village to find somebody who would carry her scanty luggage as far as Penzance. From there, an omnibus ran through Drift, past Mr. Chirgwin's farmhouse door. Joan herself designed to walk, the distance by road from Newlyn being but trifling. It chanced that the girl met Billy Jago, he who in early spring had cut down an elm tree while John Barron watched. Him Joan knew, for he had worked on her uncle's farm for many years. Mr. Jago, who could be relied upon to do simple offices, undertook the task readily enough and presently arrived with a wheelbarrow. He whined, as ever, about his physical sufferings, but drank a cup of tea with evident enjoyment, then fetched Joan's box from her room and set off with it to meet the public vehicle. Her goods were to be left at Drift, and Joan herself started at an early hour, wishing to be at the farm before her property. She walked in the garden for the last time, marked the magic progress of spring, then took an unemotional leave of her stepmother.

"There 'edn' no call to leave no message as I can see," said Joan, while she stood at the door. "He ban't my faither, he sez, so I'll take it for truth. But I'll ask you to kiss Tom for me. Us was allus good brother an' sister, whether or no; an' I loves en dearly."

"Iss, I knaw. He'll grizzle an' fret proper when he finds you'm gone. Good-by to 'e. May the Lard forgive 'e, an' send your man 'long smart; an' for heaven's sake doan't lose them notes."

"They be safe stawed next to my skin. Uncle Chirgwin'll look to them; an' you needn't be axin' God A'mighty to forgive me, 'cause I abbun done nothin' to want it. I be Nature's cheel now; an' I be in kindly hands. You caan't understand that, but I knaws what I knaws through bein' taught. Good-by to 'e. Maybe us'll see each other bimebye."

Joan held out her hand and Mrs. Tregenza shook it. Then she stood and watched her stepdaughter walk away into Newlyn. The day was cold and unpleasant, with high winds and driving mists. The village looked grayer than usual; the boats were nearly all away; the gulls fluttered in the harbor making their eternal music. Seaward, white horses flecked the leaden water; a steamer hooted hoarsely, looming large under the low, sullen sky, as it came between the pierheads. Presently a scat of heavy rain on a squall of wind shut out the harbor for a time. Mrs. Tregenza waited until Joan had disappeared, then went back to her kitchen, closed the door, sat in Gray Michael's great chair by the hearth, put her apron over her head and wept. But the exact reason for her tears she could not have explained, for she did not know it. Mingled emotions possessed her. Disappointment had something to do with this present grief; sorrow for Joan was also responsible for it in a measure. That the girl should have asked her to kiss Tom was good, Thomasin thought, and the reflection moved her to further tears; while that Joan was going to put her money into the keeping of a simple old fool like Uncle Chirgwin seemed a highly pathetic circumstance to Mrs. Tregenza. Indeed, the more she speculated upon it the sadder it appeared.

Meanwhile Joan, leaving Newlyn and turning inland along the little lane which has St. Peter's church and the Newlyn brook upon its right, escaped the wind and found herself walking through an emerald woodland world all wrapped in haze and rain. Past the smelting works, where purple smoke made wonderful color in rising against the young green, over the brook and under the avenue of great elms went Joan. Her heart ached this morning, and she thought of yesterday. It seemed as though a hundred years of experience had passed over her since she knelt by St. Madron's stone altar. She told herself bitterly how much wiser she was to-day, and, so thinking strange thoughts, tramped forward over Buryas Bridge, and faced the winding hill beyond. Then came doubts. Perhaps after all St. Madron had answered her prayer. Else why the underlying joy that now fringed her sorrows with happiness?

Drift is a place well named, when seen, as then, gray through sad-colored curtains of rain on the bare hilltop. But the orchard lands of the coomb below were fair, and many primroses twinkled in the soaking green of the tall hedge-banks. Joan splashed along through the mud, and presently a lump rose in her throat, born of thoughts. It had seemed nothing to leave the nest on the cliff, and she held her head high and thanked God for a great deliverance. That was less than an hour ago; yet here, on the last hill to Drift and within sight of the stone houses clustering at the summit, her head sank lower and lower, and it was not the rain which dimmed her eyes. She much doubted the value of further prayers now, yet every frantic hope and aspiration found its vent in a petition to her new God, as Joan mounted the hill. She prayed, because she could think of no other way to soothe her heart; but her mind was very weary and sad—not at the spectacle of the future, for that she knew was going to be fair enough—but at the vision of the past, at the years ended forever, at the early pages of life closed and locked, to be opened again no more. A childhood, mostly quite happy, was over; she would probably visit the house wherein she was born never again. But even in her sorrow, the girl wondered why she should be sad.

Mr. Chirgwin's farm fronted the highway, and its gray stone face was separated therefrom by a small and neat patch of garden. Below the house a gate opened into the farmyard, and Uncle Chirgwin's land chiefly sloped away into the coomb behind, though certain fields upon the opposite side of the highroad also pertained to him. The farmhouse was time-stained, and the stone had taken some wealth of color where black and golden lichens fretted it. The slates of the roof shone with wet and reflected a streak of white light that now broke the clouds near the hidden sun. The drippings from the eaves had made a neat row of little regular holes among the crocuses in the garden. Tall jonquils also bent their heads there, heavy with water, and the white violets which stood in patches upon either side of the front door had each a raindrop glimmering within its cup. A japonica splashed one gray wall with crimson blossoms and young green leaves; but, for the rest, this house-front was quite bare. Joan saw Mary Chirgwin's neat hand in the snowy short blinds which crossed the upper windows; and she knew that the geraniums behind the diamond panes of the parlor were her uncle's care. They dwelt indoors, winter and summer, and their lanky, straggling limbs shut out much light.

The visitor did not go to the front door, whither a narrow path, flanked with handsome masses of "Cornish diamonds," or quartz crystals, directly led from the wicket, but entered at a larger gate which led into the farmyard. Here cattle-byres and shippons ranged snugly on three sides of an open space, their venerable slates yellow with lichens, their thatches green with moss. In the center of the yard a great manure heap made comfortable lying for pigs and poultry; while the farmhouse stretched back upon the fourth side. Another gate opened beyond it, and led to the land upon the sloping hill and in the valley below. Joan passed a row of cream pans, shining like frosted silver in the mist, then turned from the bleak and dripping world. The kitchen door was open, and revealed a large, low chamber whose rafters were studded with orange-colored hams, whose fireplace was vast and black save for a small wood fire filling but a quarter of the hearth. Grocer's almanacs brought brave color to the walls, sharing the same with a big dresser where the china made a play of reflected light from the windows. Above the lofty mantel-piece there hung an old fowling-piece, and a row of faded Daguerreotypes, into most of which damp had eaten dull yellow patches. The mantel-shelf carried some rough stoneware ornaments, an eight-day clock, a tobacco jar, and divers small utensils of polished tin. A big table covered with American cloth filled the center of the kitchen, a low settle crossed the alcove of the window, and a leather screen, of four folds and five feet high, surrounded Uncle Chirgwin's own roomy armchair in the chimney-corner. Strips of cocoanut fiber lay upon the ground, but between them appeared the bare floor. It was paved with blue stone for the most part, though here and there a square of white broke the color; and the white patches had worn lower than the rest under many generations of hobnailed boots. A faint odor of hams was in the air, and the slight, stuffy smell of feathers.

A woman sat in the window as Joan entered. She had her back to the door, and not hearing the footfall, went on with her work, which was the plucking of a fowl. A cloth lay spread over the floor at her feet, and each moment the pile of feathers upon it increased as the plucker worked with rhythmic regularity and sang to herself the while.

Mary Chirgwin was a dark, good-looking girl, with a face in which strong character appeared too prominently shadowed to leave room for absolute beauty. But her features were regular if swarthy; her eyes were splendid, and her brow, from which black hair was smoothly and plainly parted away, rose broad and low. There was nothing to mark kinship between the cousins save that both held their heads finely and possessed something of the same distinction of carriage. Mary was eight-and-twenty, and, whatever might be thought about her face, there could be but one opinion upon her feminine splendor of figure. Her broad chest produced a strange speaking and singing voice—mellow as Joan's, but far deeper in the notes. Mary gloried in congregational melodies, and those who had not before heard her efforts at church on Sundays would often mistake her voice for a man's. She was dressed in print with a big apron overall; and her sleeves, turned up to her elbows, showed a pair of fine arms, perfect as to shape, but brown of color as the woman's face.

Joan stood motionless, then her cousin looked round suddenly and started almost out of her chair at a sight so unexpected. But she composed herself again instantly, put down the semi-naked fowl and came forward. They had not seen each other since the time when Joe Noy flung over Mary for Joan; and the latter, remembering this circumstance very well, had hoped she might escape from meeting her cousin until after some talk with Uncle Thomas. But Mary hid her emotion from Joan's sight, and they shook hands and looked into one another's faces, each noting marked changes there since the last occasion of their meeting. The elder spoke first, and went straight to the past. It was her nature to have every connection and concern of life upon a definite and clear understanding. She hated mystery, she disliked things hidden, she never allowed the relations between herself and any living being to stand otherwise than absolutely defined.

"You'm come, Joan, at last, though 'twas a soft day to choose. Listen to me, will 'e? Then us can let the past lie, same as us lets sleepin' dogs. I called 'pon God to blight your life, Joan Tregenza, when—you knaw. I thot I weer gwaine to die, an' I read the cussin' psalm [Footnote: The Cursing Psalm—Psalm CIX. If read by a wronged person before death, it was, and is sometimes yet, supposed to bring punishment upon the evil-doer.] agin you. 'Feared to me as you'd stawl the awnly thing as ever brot a bit o' brightness to my life. But that's all over. Love weern't for me; I awnly dreamed it weer. An' I larned better an' didn't die; an' prayed to God a many times to forgive that first prayer agin you. The likes o' you doan't know nort 'bout the grim side o' life or what it is to lose the glory o' lovin'. But I doan't harbor no ill agin you no more."

"You'm good to hear, Polly, an' kind words is better'n food to me now. I'll tell 'e 'bout myself bimebye. But I must speak to uncle fust. Things has happened."

"Nothin' wrong wi' your folks?"

"I ain't got no folks no more. But I'll tell 'e so soon's I've tawld Uncle
Thomas."

"He'm in the croft somewheers. Better bide till dinner. Uncle'll be back by then."

"I caan't, Mary—not till I've spoke wi' en. I'll gaw long down Green Lane, then I shall meet en for sure. An' if a box o' mine comes by the omblibus, 'tis right."

"A box! Whatever is there in it, Joan?"

"All's I've gotten in the world—leastways nearly. Doan't ax me nothin' now. You'll knaw as soon as need be."

Without waiting for more words Joan departed, hastened through the gate on the inner wall of the farmyard and walked along the steep hillside by a lane which wound muddily downward to the grasslands, under high hazel hedges. The new leaves dripped showers at every gust of the wind, then a gleam of wan sunlight brightened distant vistas of the way, while Joan heard the patter of a hundred hoofs in the mud, the bleat of lambs, the deeper answer of ewes, the barking of a shepherd's dog. Soon the cavalcade came into view—a flock of sheep first, a black and white dog with a black and white pup, which was learning his business, next, and Uncle Chirgwin himself bringing up the rear. The first sunshine of the day seemed to have found him out. It shone over his round red face and twinkled in the dew on his white whiskers. He stumped along upon short, gaitered legs, but went not fast, and stayed at the steep shoulder of the hill that his lambs might have rest and time to suck.

Mary Chirgwin meantime speculated on this sudden mystery of her cousin's arrival. She spread the cloth for dinner, bid her maid lay another place for Joan and wondered much what manner of news she brought. There were changes in Joan's face since she saw it last—not changes which might have been attributed to the possession of Joe Noy, but an alteration of expression betokening thought, a look of increased age, of experiences not wholly happy in their nature.

And Joan had also marked the changes in Mary. These indications were clear enough and filled her with sorrow. A river of tears will leave its bed marked upon a woman's face; and Joan, who had never thought overmuch of her cousin's sorrows until then, began to feel her heart fill and run over with sudden sympathy. She asked herself what life would look like for her if "Mister Jan"; changed his mind now and never came back again. That was how Mary felt doubtless when Joe Noy left her. Already Joan grew zealous in thought for Mary. She would teach her something of that sweet wisdom which was to support her own burden in the future; she would tell her about Nature—the "All-Mother" as "Mister Jan" called her once. And, concerning Joe Noy—might it be within the bounds of possibility, within the power of time to bring these two together again? The thought was good to Joan, and wholly occupied her mind until the sight of Uncle Chirgwin with his sheep brought her back to the present moment and her own affairs.