He rode through Saltire village with his chin high and his horse well in hand. The few sleepy folk idling about the street gaped at him with an apathetic curiosity. He passed James Marjoy rolling along in his gig, a red carnation in his button-hole and his stethoscope hanging from his pocket. The doctor gave him a curt nod and stared blankly into space. By the church the Rev. Jacob Mince eyed the horseman under the brim of his black hat, and turned from him with a pharisaical dignity. Gabriel tilted his chin more loftily towards the stars, put his shoulders back, touched his horse with the spurs. Threading the park, a slumbering Arcady, he came, by the three sun-burnished fish-ponds, to the dusky edge of the Saltire garden. A wicket-gate closed a grass-path that delved into the green. Gabriel saw a streak of white amid the bushes and a hand that waved to him with quick appeal. “Gabriel!” The man dismounted, threw the reins over the fence, and turned to the gate. Judith stood there with her hand upon the latch, her bronze hair brilliant in the sun. She was in white, fair as a magnolia in bloom, her eyes preternaturally dark in her pale and wistful face. “Gabriel, I must speak to you.” He met her very calmly, with the strength gotten of his rehallowed love. There was no distrust upon her face, only a sorrowful foreboding, a fear for that which was to follow. The man saw that the cup of malice had been emptied at her feet. “Are you also against me?” he asked her, sadly. Their hands met. Gabriel went in and stood beside her under the laurels. He seemed taller than of yore, more deep of chest, keener about the eyes. Judith looked at him, a slight color suffusing her face. “Gabriel, this is terrible.” “Mere venom,” he said. “I do not believe these lies,” she answered, with the calm of one whose convictions were carven out of white marble. “For these words, dear, I thank you.” “It is these women who have worked this web of slander.” Brother and sister stood silent a moment, looking at each other like two trustful children. “What of father?” he asked her, suddenly. A shadow swept across her face, and her eyes darkened. “He is reasonless,” she said—“mad, mad.” “I must renew his sanity.” “I doubt it—I doubt it.” “Is he so ungenerous to his own son?” “Ah, Gabriel, did I not warn you against prejudiced affections and ambitious love. Slander and shame have turned father into a Shylock. He will believe nothing, accept nothing.” “I must face him,” he said to her, moving on amid the laurels. “Be wise, weigh well your words.” Judith followed at his heels. There was great sadness upon her face. Before the path upon the Saltire lawns, she touched Gabriel’s arm and beckoned him back within the shadows of the thicket. “Gabriel,” she said. “Sister.” “Tell me one thing before you go: do you love this Joan Gildersedge?” He started to hear the hallowed name upon her lips, for he had never heard it save in his own heart.