"Some—are going out!" she thought, "and others, like me, must go on. And here we all are with walls between, but our doors open to:
"He weaves the shining garments
Unceasingly and still
Along the quiet waters
In niches of the hills."
The words seemed to paint, in the narrow room, the dim Gap. The sound of the river was in Joan's ears and she knew that the niches of the safe hills where her loved ones waited, were full of the spring blossoms.
No leaf that dawns to petal,
But hints the Angel-plan.
Joan looked up and saw Cameron at the doorway. He almost filled it, and his eyes grew troubled as he noted the thin, white, tear-wet face.
"Shall I close the door?" he asked.
"No. Please do not. I like to think that all the others, down the corridor, and I are together—listening, growing better!"
"Oh! I see." Cameron tossed aside his coat and sat down.
"I—I don't think you do," Joan smiled at him; "I think I puzzle you terribly, but some day I am going to explain everything. All my life I have been, as I am now, in a narrow little room—peeping out and never touching others any more than I am touching"—she pointed to the right and left—"my neighbours, here. But we were all listening to much the same thing then as now.
"I am going"—here Joan dashed her tears off—"I am going somehow to pull the walls down and know really!"