“He turned me from the house.”
“Joan!”
“I have come to you.”
The man stood back from her, white to the lips, his eyes strangely bright as he stared out into the gloom of the garden. A thousand clarions seemed sounding in his brain, a thousand roses burning in the night. The silence between them was as the calm before some passionate burst of song.
Joan was the first to speak again.
“Gabriel!” she said.
“Ah!”
“You will not fail me?”
The blood flooded to Gabriel’s face; he strode forward, held out both his hands. The girl rose and came to him with a great light shining in her eyes. Her cloak fell from her shoulders as she hung in the man’s arms.
“Gabriel, what could I do?”