To tell Joan Gildersedge the truth, that was the task forced upon the man by his own conscience, a task embittered by her innocence of heart. He began to despise himself vindictively for having brought so passionate and impotent a theme into the girl’s life. His very idealism had been ill-judged egotism, a selfish thirst quenchless and perilous to others. He knew in his heart that he was of more worth to Joan Gildersedge than any animate creature upon earth. Yet it was fated that he should disclose to her eyes the baser chicaneries of life—to tell her, in truth, that he had come near compromising her honor!
The memory of that day of confessions never surrendered its vividness to the touch of time. Gabriel had started early in the first flush of morning, bent on “nature studies,” as he would have had his neighbors believe. The earth was marvellously still, drowned in sunlight, an idyllic landscape such as would have glimmered from Da Vinci’s brain. The woods and hills seemed set in amber with a silver mist drawn like a gossamer veil over the green. Not a wind stirred. The sea was an uncut emerald; the sky a hollow sapphire touched with snow.
Howsoever, the man lagged upon the hills, moody and dejected. Of old he would have sped like a Greek youth through Arcady, but his heart was heavy that morning and the gods of the wilderness were mute and sad. Only the beauty of earth rose to him in mockery, the beauty of a gorgeous courtesan with a head of gold, scorning the visionary whose senses smelled of heaven. Anon the Burnt House trees stood before him in the streaming light, warm-bosomed and silent. Under the tiled roof the roses were already red upon the walls; the lilac and laburnum had fallen in the garden and the fruit trees had shed their bridal robes. Even the iron gate had a more dismal tone that morning as the man turned it back upon its rusty hinges. He walked up the drive slowly, half-hearted as a prodigal. He would have given much to have had other words under his tongue.
Joan Gildersedge was at the window of her room, a broad lattice under the tiles. She had been sitting in the shadow, with her hands idle in her lap, turning the pages of thought musingly. Gabriel saw her start up and wave to him from an aureole of jasmine and of roses. He stood before the porch and waited for the heavy door to open, feeling as though he held a naked poniard traitorously behind his back.
The girl came out to him with a calm, quick joy that made him start for breath. Her face was white, her hair coifed loosely, and there were shadows under her eyes. To Gabriel she had never seemed more beautiful as she stood before him in the sun.
“I am glad, I am glad,” she said.
“You are ill?”
“No, not ill, only tired.”
There was an unconscious spasm of joy in her voice, an uprising of gladness in her manner, that made Gabriel sick at heart. He divined what had been passing under that red-tiled roof, and that love was like the dawn to one weary of watching through the night. She hungered for such sympathy as she had often given to him in days of darkness and unrest. He knew himself suddenly for a broken reed, an empty chalice, a physician who could wound but could not heal.
“Take me into the garden,” he said; “is it your father?”