After the enunciating of such blunt truths, John Strong departed, leaving the lachrymose lady to her darning and her meditations. But Mrs. Marjoy was not a peaceful penitent. Though cowed and beaten, the original sin still stirred in her, for neither man nor angel can convert a shrew. “Guor—how I hate that man,” she reflected. So to ease her temper, she proceeded to the kitchen and scolded her cook. XLVIII IT was evening, and Joan and Gabriel walked together under the great cedar-trees in the garden where the slanting sun streaked the long lawns with gold. The slim cypresses glittered under the sombre spirelets of the yews. Above, the garden, with its dreamy tapestries wrought out of living color, stretched towards the old house whose casements gleamed towards the sea. Under the hoary and massive trees Gabriel and Joan walked hand-in-hand. Beauty seemed with them, as though they had stepped into some dim legend-land, where romance breathed over rich meadows and through waving woods. An Arthurian tenderness lived in the hour; envy and strife seemed banished even from thought. Joan, radiant as faith, leaned within the hollow of Gabriel’s arm. “Then even dreams come true,” she said to him. There was an ardent light in the man’s eyes, such a light as kindles in the eyes of a seer. “Was I not once tempted,” he answered her, “to embrace the thing that men call pessimism. For I was wounded of my fellows and knew not where to look for help. And there seemed so much horror in the world that even I half learned to jeer with those who mocked at my ideals.” “No true man is a mocker, Gabriel.” “Ay, and those who sneer betray the emptiness of their own mean minds.” For a while they stood in silence, looking out towards the west. There was calm joy in the woman’s face, the joy of a woman whose love had conquered. “The wise man ignores the vain, self-seeking, jealous horde,” she said, “where the envious intellect has stifled honor. Give me life where hearts are warm, where dissolute sophistry is unknown.” Gabriel smiled at her, a lover’s smile. “And once I doubted whether happiness could be found,” he said, “but now—” “But now?” she asked. “In a good woman’s love man comes near heaven. Give me simplicity: a quiet home, no matter how humble it may be, books, a few honest friends, some poor whom I may help.” “Ah!” Joan said, “the city taught us that.” “Vast Babel where every soul’s cry clashes. God, how my heart sickened in that place, where men scramble like swine over an unclean trough, gnashing against each other, wounding that they may live. Oh, material necessity, base need of gold! Happy are they who strive not but are content.” The sun sank low behind the trees and the east was purpled with the night. So great was the silence that the very dew seemed to murmur as it fell from out the heavens. The utter azure was untroubled by a cloud; the windless west stood a vast sheet of gold.