“What a city is this,” said the girl, looking up into the man’s face. “At first I thought that it would stifle me with its dust and din. Think of Domremy and its woods and waters. I often say to myself, ‘How can these people have souls?’ From my heart I pity the poor.” “Are we not among them?” “Struggling against fate.” “And starvation.” The man sighed, glanced at the stars in the vault above, and at the great silver rim of the moon doming the house-tops. “Often this city,” he said, “this maelstrom of misery, makes me think there is no God.” Joan’s arm tightened on his. “Much is dark and strange to us,” she said. “Dark indeed.” “You are cast down, dear, to-night.” “I am heavy of heart.” She drew very close to him, still gazing in his face. “Is it so ill with us?” “In a month,” he answered her, “unless fortune pities us, we must starve. God knows, I have pride. I cannot whine. The world seems deaf to the children of shame.” They passed on awhile in silence, threading dark streets and lurid highways where the torch of passion flickered by. Many men stared in Joan’s fair face as she moved like Truth at the side of Love. The unclean air was webbed with gold. The dance of death went merrily on. To the stars many a church held an iron cross, and the dead moon climbed in the heavy sky. Down a dusky street they saw the gleam of water under the moon. Turning, they came to where the river swept with its black bosom under the stars. Like a great scimitar it seemed to cleave the city’s heart. The man and the woman leaned on the parapet and watched the restless tide swirl by. Many lights flashed on the dusky water, symbolic of hope on the stream of years. The ebb and flow was as the life of the city, dark and unceasing under the stars. Joan’s face was turned to the heavens; her hand, clasped by Gabriel’s, rested on the cold stone. She stood so close to him that he felt her take her breath. “You cannot write to your father,” she said to him, as though suggesting his own thoughts. “It would be useless.” “No, you could not beg of him. What of your sister?” “Judith?” “Yes; she loves you.” “I could not beg from a girl.” She looked out over the river. The moon now shone upon it, spreading a glittering track of light. A myriad clocks seemed chiming the hour. “I have less pride,” she said. “Joan.” “It is I who have brought this shame and poverty upon you. I can plead with my own father.” He looked at her in silence and his hand tightened upon hers. The river glittered, a black band streaked with silver; roof and spire glimmered under the moon. The lessening roar of the great loom of life rose upon the night breeze. As for Joan, she was dreaming of the Mallan water, the green woods, and the roses that would crimson her old home. The trees would be flowering in the orchard; the almond had waved its pink pennons athwart the blue. There would be a thousand violets purpling the grass.