At certain rare seasons in life, virgin light floods down into the heart, as from some oriel opened in heaven. The world stands under a grander scheme of chiaroscuro; men comprehend where they once scoffed. It was thus that Yeoland rose inspired, like a spiritual Venus from a sea of dreams. As molten glass is shaped speedily into fair and exquisite device, so the red wax of her heart had taken the impress of the hour. Gilderoy had stirred her like a blazoned page of romance. Fulviac caught the girl’s half glance at him; read in measure the meaning of her mood. Her lips were half parted as though she had words upon her tongue, but still hesitated from some scruple of pride. He straightened in the saddle, and waited for her to unbosom to him with a confident reserve. "Well?" he said at length, since she still lingered in her silence. "How much one may learn in a day," she answered, drawing her white palfrey nearer to his horse. Fulviac agreed with her. "The man on the end of the rope," he said, "learns in two minutes that which has puzzled philosophers since Adam loved Eve." She turned to him with an eagerness that was almost passionate even in its suppressed vigour. "How long was it before you came to pity your fellows?" "Some minutes, not more." "And the conversion?" "Shall satisfy you one day. For the present I will buckle up so unsavoury a fable in my bosom. Tell me what you have learnt at Gilderoy." Yeoland looked at the moon. The man saw great sadness upon her face, but also an inspired radiance that made its very beauty the more remarkable. He foresaw in an instant that they were coming to deeper matters. Superficialities, the mannerisms of life, were falling away. The girl’s heart beat near to his; he felt a luminous sympathy of spirit rise round them like the gold of a Byzantine background. "Come," he said, with a burst of beneficence, "you are beginning to understand me." She jerked a swift glance at him, like the look of a half-tamed falcon. "You are a man, for all your sneers and vapourings." "I had a heart once. Call me an oak, broken, twisted, aged, but an oak still." Yeoland drew quite close to him, so that her skirt almost brushed his horse’s flank. Fulviac’s shadow fell athwart her. Only her face shone clear in the moonlight. "I have ceased," she said, "to look upon life as a stretch of blue, a laughing dawn." "Good." "I have learnt that woe is the crown of years." "Good again." "That life is full of violence and wrong." "A platitude. Yes. Life consists in learning platitudes." "I am only one woman among thousands." "A revelation." "You jeer." "Not so. Few women learn the truth of your proverb." "Lastly, my trouble is not the only woe in the world. That it is an error to close up grief in the casket of self."