Gabriel was in a bitter mood. He had long escaped from the sensuous stupor into which his marriage had plunged him, and the awakening was the more humiliating to his pride. The natural fires of the mind were stirring from the ashes of a dead and sensual desire. His thoughts spread towards the unknown and into the wilderness of beauty and romance. He had bartered his liberty for red pottage and the bondage irked his soul.
Brother and sister came nearer to each other’s heart that day as they wandered over the misty hills. Judith had caught the man’s humor, and her sympathies were awake like birds on a May morning. It was pure joy to her to feel that she had some share in the man’s musings.
“I am weary of orthodoxy,” he said to her, as they threaded a wood where the trees stood in a silver vapor.
“What is orthodoxy?” she asked, as she followed at his heels.
“The blind cult of custom.”
“Why trouble over such a grievance; the world is wide. Need one think with the mob?”
“In Saltire, yes.”
“Perhaps you are right,” she said to him, as she drew to his side and looked wistfully into his face.
Gabriel unbosomed to her.
“The place is like a stagnant pool to me,” he said, “covered with the scum of custom. To doubt, according to our neighbors, is a sin. He who weighs the problems of life is held to be an infidel. We are expected to receive Mr. Mince’s dogmas as the only exposition of all truth and knowledge. To experiment is infamous. We are hedged in with endless axioms as with thorns.”