The agent and Aderhold were standing by the table, but Joan had seated herself where through the open casement she could see the clearing sky. The movement brought her into the shaft of light. It bathed, it etherealized face and form. She looked an immortal.... Placed so, she came first before the eye when the man, whose step was now heard without, swung the door wider and entered the room.
The agent started from the table. “Ha, Harry Carthew! I looked to find you—”
But Carthew had neither eye nor ear for the returned acquaintance and fellow-resister of the King. Harry Carthew stood like a man turned to stone.... Six years alone could not have made him look so much older. He looked much older—a stern and worn man, with a grim mouth and eyes where enthusiasm now burned bright and now sank among the embers of itself. He was dressed much as he used to dress. It was the face and figure of the man who had come to Heron’s cottage, but there had been a long warfare in the nature and some degree of change. He stood starkly silent, with a great, arrested look, as if the very elements of his being stood still.... Joan, rising, passed from the beam of light into the shadow by Aderhold. They stood side by side, hand touching hand. With a final crash and clangour the bells stopped ringing.
“What is it?” demanded the agent. “You know these people—”
Carthew moistened his lips. They parted, but at first there came forth only an uncertain and broken sound. Then,—“You were long sought. But when the Silver Queen came back from Virginia we learned that you had escaped upon her, but had been thrown from her for what you were, and were dead. Years ago ... and you stand there....”
The mate of the Eagle came to the door. “Sir, may we be going now?”
The agent crossed to him. “Not yet. Wait a little, there without—” A voice spoke from behind the mate. “I am with Master Carthew. I may enter, sir?”
The agent turned back into the room, and with him came a slight man with a steeple-crowned hat and a Geneva cloak. Joan and Aderhold faced Master Thomas Clement.
At last there came from the minister’s lips, “Thou witch! Thou atheist and sorcerer!”
The agent of the Company struck his hand against the table. “Who are these?”