a letter came to gabriel in his dingy rooms, where he was waiting to hear news of joan and of her quest. there had not been money enough to take both of them to rilchester, when possible defeat would have burdened the journey home. gabriel had never known the full divinity of joan’s love till she parted from him with a brave smile in her dear eyes. her womanly courage had revealed itself to him in all its pathetic beauty when her golden head sunned the shadows of the room no more.

gabriel was at his supper, a sorry meal enough, when the letter came to him from rilchester. he had been in a desperate mood all day, nor had he slept the previous night, with dark doubts fluttering through his brain like bats through a ruin. why had not joan returned? at the dim and half-desolate station, gabriel had watched, waiting and waiting as each night train came in. he had spent the next day in lincoln’s inn fields and by the river, hanging a haggard face over the stone parapet, too sick at heart to eat. how often had defeat smitten hope down into the dust! ever and again he had wandered back to the hot, dusty by-street, hoping to find that joan had returned.

when gabriel looked at the letter that the dirty servant tossed onto the table, he flushed like a boy, and his heavy, sleepless eyes grew bright. the writing was judith’s. visions of green woods and golden meadows flashed up before him like romance, the warm scent of a woman’s hair, the memory of her pale face and shadowy eyes. judith! how he loved that name! were not all truth and beauty built therein, purity and pity, the divine tenderness that makes earth heaven?

he tore open the envelope and read the letter, leaning forward a little towards the window, his hands trembling markedly:

“my dearest brother [it began],—at last i am able to write to you after all these months of silence and distress. oh, strange fate, that in finding a woman fainting on the road to rilchester i should find my brother!”

the letter, warm and fragrant with the love of a good woman, went on to tell how joan and judith had come together after joan’s flight from zeus gildersedge’s death-bed. the outpourings of hours of solitary yearning seemed to flow in the eager and impassioned words. of joan, judith wrote with a fervor that brought a strange smile to gabriel’s face:

“now i can understand your love, brother, and your strong heroism in defying society for a woman’s sake. this dear joan is blood of my blood, heart of my heart. in two days we have become as sisters. ah, gabriel, i would trust her, even if she had come to me from the gate of hell. but methinks she is more like beatrice out of paradise.”

from such sisterly exultation judith digressed to speak of john strong:

“father has aged since the autumn. he is whiter and stoops a little, and his eyes look tired. poor father! he has always been a hard man, but i believe the ice is broken about his heart. would to god he would be less proud! and yet i love this pride of his when he faces the prattlers here like a brutus, and frowns back those he does not trust.

“moreover, i am convinced that father has changed his opinions greatly, though he says but little. that woman—pardon me, gabriel, for i hate her—has been brazening it about like any countess. that she is none too honest i would stake my soul. we of gabingly and saltire are like border barons locked in a death feud. maltravers. have you ever heard the name from ophelia’s lips? father has hinted that he has had his suspicions aroused by some casual circumstances that have been brought to his notice. would to heaven he would be more frank with me!

“now, gabriel, my own brother, let me plead with you as a sister. joan must remain here; i have my reasons, and a woman’s wit is worth more than a lawyer’s tongue. as for yourself, stay in london till i bid you come.

“joan is well. see, i enclose a short letter from her. also a little money out of my allowance. use it, dear gabriel, and god bless you!

“pardon the vagueness of all this; i write in great haste.

“judith.”

gabriel sat there in the twilight with the letters and bank-notes laid upon his knee. from without came the sound of a woman singing, singing in one of the dim and narrow rooms below his window. to gabriel it seemed for the moment as the voice of some aspiring spirit climbing from the squalor of life into the more splendid land of dreams. it was but a poor, struggling child of art who sang, mocking with her melody the coarse cares of a loveless world.

he took joan’s letter and read it as through a mist, halting often as though to hold and possess each word.

“dear heart [it ran],—judith, your sister, will have told you all; how we two have come together and how she has helped me. i had dreamed of noble women in the past, and now i have found one of my own flesh and blood and crown and all. judith is wonderful; were she a queen, i could die for her as easily as i could fall asleep.

“of my father i need write nothing, save that he is dead.

“oh, my own, i stretch out my arms to you, and my heart is full. yet must i stay here in exile, even as you must wait for what god shall give to us. i have great joy and faith in judith, for like an angel she seems to press the clouds back from the world.

“gabriel, good-night. there is a spirit in me that bids me hope.”

the man sat a long while in the silent room, while the night came down and the gloom increased. out of the dusk, under the shadow of fruit-trees, within beck of a red rose, gabriel beheld two women standing, fair women whose faces seemed to cleanse the world. horror and despair seemed to faint away like black waters ebbing from before their feet. for in either hand there was a lamp, golden-tongued and stately, faith out of heaven.

the singing had ceased in the room below, and over the myriad roofs rose the solemn arch of the moon. gabriel watched it climb the sky, till it seemed to hang like a mighty halo behind the iron cross of a church.