Gabriel’s memory hailed her with that hurrying of the heart that comes with the inspiration of the breath of life. His cheeks burned in the sun. Fear touched him as with the finger of prophecy. Scoff who will, there is a divine dread that seizes on strong men in the sanctuary of passion. Even as the harp trembles as it bears the burden of some solemn song, so the highly strung soul vibrates to melodies, perilous yet divine. Only clay is passive and unfearful. The mere animal loves with his loins, and is of the earth earthy. That man is indeed to be pitied who has never felt the splendid awe that the pure loveliness of a woman can inspire.
Gabriel left the mound, color in his cheeks and on his lips a half-shy smile. If he had never believed in Schopenhauer, the faith of a pessimist failed him ignominiously at that moment. He was mediæval to the core. Nor did he believe Shakespeare to be a fool.
A warmer color had risen to Joan Gildersedge’s face. Her eyes had a lustre in the sunlight, such a light that makes a woman a thousand times more desirable than of yore.
“You are a long way from home,” she said, considering him with an ingenuous gravity that was very magical, “and yet I had a presentiment that I should meet you here to-day.”
They turned back with spontaneous consent, climbed the mound together, and seated themselves side by side upon the altar stone. The scene seemed utterly natural, yet quick with a rare unreality that kindled beauty. Joan unpinned her hat and laid it beside her. A great oak overarched the mound and reared a shadowy canopy above them.
“It is nearly a month since we met,” she said.
Gabriel was staring over the sea. A wilderness of romance had risen about his soul, a wild shadow-land drowned in moonlight, swept by a complaining wind.
“It seems as yesterday,” he answered her.
She smiled, half mysteriously, yet with a frankness that imaged truth.
“I have passed through trouble since I spoke with you by the river,” she said.
Gabriel listened in silence as she spoke to him of much that had passed at the house amid the yews. The twain might have been in each other’s hearts for years. When he questioned her at the end thereof she showed him her hands, less white than of yore and roughened with toil.