judith strong had joined gabriel at the friary, and judith was as far removed in soul from the saltire dames as aldebaran is from the moon. saltire needed the magic of ruskin; it was in its ice age, crusted by custom. there were discrepancies in saltire that would not have shone with splendor upon the pages of sesame and lilies. for the cordelias, the virgilias, the imogens, saltire could have proffered mrs. marjoy or mrs. mince, or even that beglassed diana, miss zinia snodley of the irreproachable boots.
of the malignities that sucked leechlike at his honor gabriel strong was most honestly ignorant. many seasons elapse before man reads the unpropitious faces of his fellows, not dowering himself spontaneously with the power of arousing hatred in others. the child’s optimism dies slowly, as the white swans change to geese, the foaming chargers to long-eared asses. envy is the unwilling flattery of the fool. the true man puts forward the shield of power and regains once more the golden age of youth by triumphing godlike over the malice of mediocrity.
judith had found her brother full of a restless morbidity, his mind like a darkened mirror full of vague shadows and indefinite glimmerings of light. he was alternately silent and impulsively verbose; burdened either with a monotonous melancholy or a scintillant and flippant mirth. he would spend much of the day breasting the winter winds and the mists that hastened over the hills. of his married life he said no word to her, nor dared she tempt him for all her love to a confession.
one evening, after playing chopin’s second waltz, she had turned in the dusk to find him staring at the flames as they flung tragic shadows through the twilight. he looked like a dante, gazing morose and mute upon the pessimisms of some under world. the music had moved him; she had read its echoes in his eyes. going on her knees, she had taken his hands in hers and pleaded with him after the gracious manner of her heart.
“gabriel, what ails you?” she had asked.
the man had put her hands gently from him and turned his face into the shadows.
“nothing,” he had answered her.
“can you not trust me?”
“dear, i cannot trust myself.”
she had crept close to him and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“gabriel, is it your marriage?”
“do not ask me,” he had said.
“may i not help you?”
“no one can help me,” he had retorted, rising and leaving her alone by the fire.
one winter afternoon they wandered together on the hills above the sea. the day was cheerless and full of the piping of the wind. the sea ran gray and lustreless under a sullen sky, whose clouds trailed dim and rain-laden over the hills. the woods were gaunt and wild as with remorse. dead leaves lay rotting in the lanes; in some of the more sheltered ditches snow still lingered.
the conversation had fallen upon elemental things—the thirst for love and man’s eternal yearning for a spiritual creed. judith, divine woman that she was, possessed that clarity of thought that abhorred dogmas and embraced untainted truth. religion to her was as spiritual sunlight diffusing itself throughout the world. to her sanctity did not emanate from the pulpit. she was no automaton stirred to moral activity by black-letter phrases and studied incantations. to her life was religion, each heart-beat a natural prayer. her christianity was not of the book and the pew, but a bright atmosphere surrounding all things.
gabriel was in a bitter mood. he had long escaped from the sensuous stupor into which his marriage had plunged him, and the awakening was the more humiliating to his pride. the natural fires of the mind were stirring from the ashes of a dead and sensual desire. his thoughts spread towards the unknown and into the wilderness of beauty and romance. he had bartered his liberty for red pottage and the bondage irked his soul.
brother and sister came nearer to each other’s heart that day as they wandered over the misty hills. judith had caught the man’s humor, and her sympathies were awake like birds on a may morning. it was pure joy to her to feel that she had some share in the man’s musings.
“i am weary of orthodoxy,” he said to her, as they threaded a wood where the trees stood in a silver vapor.
“what is orthodoxy?” she asked, as she followed at his heels.
“the blind cult of custom.”
“why trouble over such a grievance; the world is wide. need one think with the mob?”
“in saltire, yes.”
“perhaps you are right,” she said to him, as she drew to his side and looked wistfully into his face.
gabriel unbosomed to her.
“the place is like a stagnant pool to me,” he said, “covered with the scum of custom. to doubt, according to our neighbors, is a sin. he who weighs the problems of life is held to be an infidel. we are expected to receive mr. mince’s dogmas as the only exposition of all truth and knowledge. to experiment is infamous. we are hedged in with endless axioms as with thorns.”
judith sighed and looked out over the sea.
“i fear you will find no rest in saltire,” she said to him.
“rest! no. could it be possible? the place cramps and crushes my soul. there is no generosity, no hope, no idealism here. it is as a burial-ground for souls.”
“escape from it.”
“impossible.”
“and why?”
“what of ophelia?”
they were both silent awhile, as though searching each other’s hearts. the wind tumbled the dead leaves at their feet; the clouds were gray and morose in the winter sky.
“ah, gabriel, it might have been otherwise.”
the man frowned and did not answer her.
“what of politics?” she asked him anon.
“i have pondered the question.”
“you would escape into a wider world—a world of endeavor and strong purpose.”
“better than saltire.”
“better than mouldering here amid a decaying generation.”
“it is the fog of the place that chokes me.”
they had passed to the dull green of the meadows and skirted a ragged hedge where dead branches shook in the wind. a path curled from the wood above them, crossed the road that ran by the hedge, and threaded on through ploughed fields towards a thicket of pines. gabriel and judith had halted to gaze over the sea.
as they turned again towards the west a girl in a green cloak and russet skirt came out from the wood and followed the path that descended towards the lane. she carried her hat in her hand and walked bareheaded in the wind. passing close to the pair, she glanced at judith, then at gabriel, halted a moment, and then hastened on with kindling cheeks over the meadows. it was thus that gabriel and joan gildersedge met once more on the hills above the sea.
judith had glanced unconsciously at her brother’s face. its expression startled her. his eyes were full of a peculiar brightness, his cheeks afire, his lips parted. the face reminded her of some painting of dante—dante gazing upon beatrice gliding athwart the path of life.
“gabriel.”
the man darted a look at her and grew pale suddenly.
“what ails you?” she asked, with her hand on his arm.
“nothing.”
“are you ill?”
“no.”
“the wind is cold; let us go home.”
“yes, let us go home.”
