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. “I am alone now,” she said. “No one to help.” “I do all for my father’s sake. It is better so. He is growing very decrepit.” “You must be utterly lonely.” “I am—at times.” “And yet you have no friends?” “None.” “It is over hard.” She smiled, and there was a look of strange happiness upon her face. Perhaps the man’s sympathy was more to her than either of them had realized. Gabriel had forgotten for a moment the eternal bathos of modernity. “I would that I could help you,” he said. Joan’s eyes were turned suddenly to his. “You have helped me,” she answered. “I?” “Yes.” “How?” “You have often been in my thoughts,” she said. “Pardon me if I seem too much a child. I have never been taught the shame of speaking what is uppermost in my mind. I am vastly ignorant.” “You are wiser than I am.” “No.” “Pardon me, the world has not stiffened you with its multitudinous hypocrisies. We society fools are jointed up in false affectations. We cannot live like honest human beings.” “You do not seem false to me,” she said. “God forbid!” he answered, with a sudden stirring of his conscience. They were both silent a season. The girl’s words had rent the sky above the man’s head. He was conscious of the perilous egotism that had taken the guise of a darkling vision to lead him onward into a shadow-land of desire. “You should not dream too much,” he said. His voice startled her; she looked him in the face, her instincts probing his meaning. “Why do you say that?” she said. “By reason of a certain melancholy wisdom.” “And yet—” “I have been a dreamer,” he said, “but I have played the traitor to my dreams. I suppose it was inevitable in a land such as this. One cannot always stand with one’s back to the wall and fight orthodox dullards. I have not the energy to exist as a living protest against Philistinism. We men are often fools. Have you ever read of Tantalus?” She pondered a moment and her face lightened. “Tantalus?” “The man in hades.” “Who clutched at grapes when thirst tormented him, but was baffled ever.” “Even so.” “Cursed by the gods.” “I am Tantalus,” he said. She looked into the woods, solemn as a prophetess lost in dreams. A cloud had fallen upon Gabriel’s face. The girl felt its presence, though she had not looked into his eyes again. “I should not have imagined it,” she said; “you did not seem to me to be unhappy.” “Perhaps not.” “I am sorry.” “I do not deserve that you should be sorry for my sake.” “I cannot think that.”