gabriel strong came up the road from rilchester, swinging along between the high hedgerows, with the morning sun behind him. the sky was of limitless blue above, and beyond the deep woods and the green meadows rose cambron head, a purple height stemming the greens and azures of the sea. so lusty was the sunlight that the sand and shingle edging the great bay gleamed like bronze above the foam.
gabriel, leaving the high-road, struck out a path over the meadows. the tall grass was ablaze with flowers—buttercups and golden trefoil, great white daisies, clover, purple vetches, delicate flax. wild roses were opening upon the hedges. odors of honeysuckle and of hay were in the air.
by an old oak that grew in the midst of a grass field gabriel halted to rest and look upon the scenes he knew so well. yonder was the hoary sea, and nearer still were the magic hills below old rilchester where joan had sunned the woodlands with her hair. was it but yesterday that he had moped like an exile in that great labyrinth of brick and stone, knowing no man, known of none? was it but yesterday that he had received that letter saying, “come, come; the day is ours”?
that morning gabriel had risen soon after dawn, like a school-boy yearning towards home. he had left london by the earliest train, and found the good borough of rilchester but waking from its sleep. even judith had foreseen no such prodigal energy as this. there had been no one to meet him at the station, but gabriel’s ardor was not to be damped that june.
with new color in his cheeks and a tremulous eagerness in his eyes, he came that morning towards the cottage in the fields where joan, his wife, was lodged. he entered in at the little gate, smiling to himself even as a man might smile who climbed to meet love at the gate of heaven. humble enough was the rose-grown porch, and humble the janitor who stood within. yet all was heaven to gabriel that june morning.
“lor’, mr. strong!”
“good-morning, mrs. milton.”
“good-morning, sir. glad to see you, sir. come inside, sir.”
“my wife is here, mrs. milton?”
“your wife, sir? to be sure, there is a lady here.”
gabriel smiled, but there was no suspicion of bitterness in his eyes.
“my wife is with you, mrs. milton,” he said.
“lor’, mr. strong, i was just now going to say—”
“shall i find her in the garden?”
“if you please, sir. and may i say, sir, if it ain’t presumption in an old woman, that i never did believe them lies.”
gabriel colored a little, but smiled in the old woman’s kindly face.
“thank you, mrs. milton,” he said.
“?’twas this way, sir. miss judith, she says to me, sir, ‘my brother, mrs. milton—my brother is an english gentleman’; and what miss judith says, sir, might, i reckon, satisfy the old gentleman hisself.”
gabriel, sped by a kindly gleam from the old lady’s eyes, passed round the cottage to the garden at the back. under a fruit tree joan was seated, gazing up at the sky through the green tracery of the leaves. an open book lay in her lap, a book that wept with those who mourned and rejoiced with those who sang.
gabriel stood there in silence before her, waiting till her eyes should end their communing with heaven. the sunlight, flashing through the boughs, set a golden coronet upon her hair. at last she looked to the earth once more, saw gabriel standing near the cottage, his hands stretched out to her, a lover’s hands.
she gave a low cry, did joan, and thrusting the book aside, rose up and sped to him.
“gabriel!”
“wife!”
the woman’s head was on the man’s shoulder and his arms were close about her body. in that glad meeting came the full consummation of all prayer and hope. together they stood under the summer sky, while the spirit of june breathed over field and garden. the red rose had kissed the white, and heaven’s dew had touched the heart of many a flower.
“god has answered us,” said joan, at last, lifting up her radiant face.
and gabriel kissed her.
“you are happy?” he asked.
“happy! what can mere words declare?”
“that by your martyrdom you have made of me a man.”
even at that moment judith came flashing in, a fair vision of womanhood under the orchard trees. she had not dreamed to find gabriel so soon returned. for all the bowl of life seemed brimming with joy that morning. brother and sister stood hand to hand, looking deeply into each other’s eyes.
“gabriel,” said the sister, “there is justice in this old world yet.”
“who works for justice?”
“god,” she answered him, very simply. “has science slain him? nay. can the glib pen, the cunning instrument, tell us yet more than all our hearts have dreamed. the grander deeps are far beyond us still.”
gabriel stood, gazing beyond the hills.
“you women are wonderful,” he said.
joan smiled at judith, judith at joan.
“come, sister, read me the riddle.”
“is it not faith,” she said, “that makes love love indeed?”
before noon father and son had met in saltire garden, under the cedar-tree at the end of the long lawn. they had gripped hands like men, and now paced shoulder to shoulder over the grass, talking together frankly and without restraint. the great trouble that had fallen upon both seemed to have strangled pride and to have broken down that barrier that had always stood between them. john strong’s face was strangely altered. he seemed younger by some years, and he no longer stooped.
“gabriel,” he said, bluntly, “whatever the past has brought us, let it be granted that i was the greater fool.”
“not so, father,” retorted the son.
but even in the quaint thoroughness of his self-abasement, the elder man’s obstinacy played its part.
“hang argument,” he said; “the facts are plain. no man likes owning that he was wrong, and i, sir, am no exception. but you struck for a principle, i for a prejudice. there is the truth in a nutshell.”
but gabriel was not convinced.
“the fault was in measure mine,” he said, “even because i did not trust you as a son should.”
under the trees, over the green grass below the banks of burning flowers, they saw joan and judith walking hand-in-hand. a calm light played upon gabriel’s face; a smile flickered over john strong’s stubborn mouth.
“confound these women!” he said; “how they shame us.”
“true, sir, i have learned as much.”
“my own daughter has taught me a lesson.”
“and joan has made a man of me.”
they met together under the cedar, joan and gabriel, judith and her father. it seemed that they had communion in that hour and that the same spirit inspired them all.
john strong reached out his hands to judith and the other two.
“come, lassies and lads,” he said, with a grim yet merry light in his gray eyes, “take hands and let us make our vow.”
“what shall we vow?” asked judith, holding her father’s arm.
“to stand against slander.”
“against slander,” said they all.
“till death us do part.”
