the sky was suffused with opalescent vapors rising from the golden bowl of the sea. joan gildersedge, with a page of spenser unread upon her lap, was sitting under the pine-tree on the half-moon of grass in burnt house garden, looking out towards the south. it was her especial curtilage, her garden of gems, arabesques of brilliant color burning amid the green. towards the west a screen of purple clematis ran like a frieze above a bank of fuchsias, red, amethyst, and white. over the warm bosom of the low brick wall a passion-flower clambered to hear the rhapsodies of a rose. to the east canterbury-bells, a gracious company, wove wondrous textures of purple and snow. amid the enamelled faces of a myriad pansies, night-stock dowered the evening with a subtle fragrance.
joan’s heart had opened to the thousand voices of her flowers. she was in a golden mood, sad, yet happy—the mood of one who lives in dreams and forgets the present. the greater burden of the day had been passed with her father; she had found him more human for the nonce, less gray and barbarous. bodily he was much like a withered leaf that had mouldered to a lacelike skeleton, a traceried image of itself. during the early summer he had weakened, maintaining none the less his mercenary acumen of mind, that like a red spark fed still upon the rotten tinder of the flesh. he was much abed now; his cottages at rilchester had not tumbled their rents into his leather bag these many months. an agent fingered the blue-leaved ledger and harvested pence in that provincial slum.
joan had been reading of britomart, that woman queening it in the pages of romance. this british heroine had ever had a strong hold on the child joan’s heart, an idyllic foster-mother, pure and fearless. even now, in the deeper wisdom of her wounded days, the girl had found in this fair woman of legendary lore a sister quickened with a kindred sympathy.
perhaps there was a suggestive moral in the legend that had startled joan like the sudden voice of one singing in the woods. she remembered that artegal the just had proved vincible, a god of clay with a heart of gold. despite his manhood, he had fallen into unheroic jeopardy, even to the quaint ignominy of wearing women’s gear. and it had needed britomart to end his shame.
whatever mysterious philosophies were moving in her heart, the girl was doomed to discover scope for heroism that evening. up the narrow lane circling the hill-side a man was urging a jaded horse, slouching low in the saddle. the western light smote upon his face, making it white and ethereal, like the face of one who had risen from a sick-bed.
drawing rein before the iron gate and rolling out of the saddle, he tethered his horse and passed up the darkening drive. the gravel complained beneath his feet. reaching the porch, he set the bell clanging through the solitary house, mocking, metallic laughter that died in a rattling chuckle. anon, as he stamped restlessly to and fro, the door opened, and mrs. primmer’s stony face stared at him out of the dusk of the hall. gabriel saw her lips tighten as she looked him over. there was a new significance for him in the steel of her observant eyes. she snapped the words out of her narrow mouth, forestalling his question with an intelligence that was almost insolent.
“miss joan’s in the garden.”
the man turned away with a clinched jaw and a hot color. there was something sinister even in the tone of the woman’s voice, a hint at knowledge that brimmed his cup of bitterness the more. the children of mammon had proved wiser than he in their generation. like an idealist in hades, he was mocked by the scoffing shades of the grossly wise dead.
gabriel passed the rank lawns, the arbor of yews, and the tall acacia, glanced at the dial-plate, ineffectual at that hour of the decline. plunging through joan’s arch of roses, he came by a bank of cypresses to the full mountainous glory of the west. clouds, red of bosom, sailed solemn over the sea. the valley beneath was veiled in splendor.
on the half-circle of grass he saw joan sitting with the book in her lap, her face turned from him towards the west. the boughs of the pine-tree overshadowed her. her dress ran a faint blue streak in the grass. he stood and watched her a moment, shading his eyes with his hand, with an expression half of despair upon his face. he was a coward no longer in the meaner sense, yet his heart sickened when he remembered the words that were poised upon his tongue.
crossing the lawn he called the girl by name. she turned with a strange swiftness, rose up from under the tree like one wakened out of a dream. her face was afire, her eyes full of a sudden recognition. it was easy to define the feeling that was uppermost in her heart.
they stood some paces apart and looked at each other in silence. the girl’s attitude was that of wistful appeal, generous ignorance thirsting for the truth. gabriel saw her standing before him, enshrined by the gold of the west, pure and infinitely gracious. the very beauty of her innocence smote his courage as with fire. all the glib and tragic pathos he had conjured into his heart was shrivelled, parched into inarticulate fear. the horror of sacrilege possessed him. he stood as one palsied, stricken mute like zacharias by his vision in the temple.
“gabriel.”
of a sudden she ran to him, stooping and looking in his face. from the warmth of her thoughtless joy she had gone white, strangely earnest and eager. gazing in gabriel’s eyes, she read the fear therein, the haggard, strained look upon his face that declared deep dread within.
“gabriel,” she said again, almost in a whisper.
“ah, do not look at me like this.”
“what is it—tell me?”
“the worst.”
“ah no, not that!”
he threw up his arm with a gesture of anguish and covered his face.
“my god, how can i tell you the truth!”
joan caught him by the wrists, drew down his hand, stared in his face, one deep, tragic look. the man’s eyes shirked hers. his lips were quivering like the lips of one in peril of tears.
joan drew a sudden, deep breath, loosed her hold, and stood back from him with her hands pressed over her heart.
“gabriel.”
he could not answer her. her words came to him with a passionate breathlessness born of despair.
“i understand—yes, yes, do not speak—i can bear it—let it come slowly. i understand now.”
she stood with her head thrown back, her throat showing, her eyes closed as in prayer. her face was as pale as the petals of the passion-flower upon the wall. gabriel, with lips twitching, paced to and fro like one in physical anguish. a hand of ice seemed contracting about his heart. suddenly, as by some superhuman instinct, he fell down with a half-muffled cry at the girl’s feet, caught her by the knees, and buried his face in her dress.
“joan, joan.”
she still stood with eyes closed, her body quivering, her hands over her heart.
“joan, curse me, for god’s sake curse me!”
“no, no.”
“that i should have brought this upon you!”
“no, no.”
“curse me.”
she slipped suddenly to her knees as though her soul failed her, wound her arms about the man’s neck, and hid her face upon his shoulder. they kneeled thus for some moments, wrapped in each other’s arms like two children. neither spoke. it was a merging of their common woe into one deep flux of silent sympathy.
the fall of tears on her cheek roused joan, like the touch of a child’s hand bestirs a mother. she lifted her head, held the man at arm’s-length, looked in his face with a great flash of womanly tenderness.
“gabriel.”
“girl—”
“weep not for me.”
“you shame me too utterly.”
“ah no, do not think that of me. god knows, i shall help you by being strong.”
she passed her hand over his forehead, smiled with an infinite wistfulness, lifted up her mouth to his, and kissed him.
“courage,” she said.
for the first time he looked in her eyes, steadily, yet with an incredulous awe that was not of earth. had christ spoken he could not have breathed a diviner love.
“you shame me,” was all he said.
“no, no.”
“what am i, that you should treat me thus?”
“ah, is it so strange?”
“it is marvellous, beyond belief.”
she put his hands from her very gently, rose up, and stood at her full height, looking out towards the sea. the blood had risen again from her heart; her lips were no longer tremulous; her eyes shone more bright with hope. gabriel watched her, holding close under the pine-tree so that he stood in shadow, while joan breathed in the sun. the scene was figurative to him of her finer beauty of soul.
“gabriel,” she said at last, turning her head so that he saw her pure, strong profile and then the sunlight in her eyes.
“i am listening.”
“can you believe me? but i had half prayed for this.”
“joan!”
“it is the truth.”
he left the shadows of the tree and stood again at the girl’s side. his fingers touched joan’s. standing hand in hand, they looked out over the sea at the sun sinking in a whorl of lambent fire.
“i am no longer afraid.”
“nor i, save for your sake.”
“ah, gabriel, what is sacrifice but love transfigured?”
the clouds were paling in the west; a glamour of light still poured upward into the heavens.
“had i been less a fool,” he said, “i could have saved all this. thank god, i am no longer clay, to be thumbed by circumstance!”
“and yet,” she said, with a deep inrush of heroism.
“well?”
“i would not have had it otherwise. it is the fire that refines and tempers. it is by battle that we overcome the world.”
“yes, men still need the sword.”
“well spoken.”
“i draw mine for our liberty, your honor.”
