Then she walked, over to the western window, and threw it wide open. The sun was dipping gently towards the purple hills. The deep blue of the sky began to pale, as a hint of lovely rose crept into it. Jane looked heavenward and, thrusting her hands deeply into her pockets, spoke aloud. "Before God" she said,—"in case I am never able to say or think it again, I will say it now—I BELIEVE I WAS RIGHT. I considered Garth's future happiness, and I considered my own. I decided as I did for both our sakes, at terrible cost to present joy. But, before God, I believed I was right; and—I BELIEVE IT STILL."
Jane never said it again.
CHAPTER XXIX
JANE LOOKS INTO LOVE'S MIRROR
Behind the yellow screen, Jane found a great confusion of canvases, and unmistakable evidence of the blind hands which had groped about in a vain search, and then made fruitless endeavours to sort and rearrange. Very tenderly, Jane picked up each canvas from the fallen heap; turning it the right way up, and standing it with its face to the wall. Beautiful work, was there; some of it finished; some, incomplete. One or two faces she knew, looked out at her in their pictured loveliness. But the canvases she sought were not there.
She straightened herself, and looked around. In a further corner, partly concealed by a Cairo screen, stood another pile. Jane went to them.
Almost immediately she found the two she wanted; larger than the rest, and distinguishable at a glance by the soft black gown of the central figure.
Without giving them more than a passing look, she carried them over to the western window, and placed them in a good light. Then she drew up the chair in which she had been sitting; took the little brass bear in her left hand, as a talisman to help her through what lay before her; turned the second picture with its face to the easel; and sat down to the quiet contemplation of the first.
The noble figure of a woman, nobly painted, was the first impression which leapt from eye to brain. Yes, nobility came first, in stately pose, in uplifted brow, in breadth of dignity. Then—as you marked the grandly massive figure, too well-proportioned to be cumbersome, but large and full, and amply developed; the length of limb; the firmly planted feet; the large capable hands,—you realised the second impression conveyed by the picture, to be strength;—strength to do; strength to be; strength to continue. Then you looked into the face. And there you were confronted with a great surprise. The third thought expressed by the picture was Love—love, of the highest, holiest, most ideal, kind; yet, withal, of the most tenderly human order; and you found it in that face.