“ ’Twas this way, sir. Miss Judith, she says to me, sir, ‘My brother, Mrs. Milton—my brother is an English gentleman’; and what Miss Judith says, sir, might, I reckon, satisfy the old gentleman hisself.”
Gabriel, sped by a kindly gleam from the old lady’s eyes, passed round the cottage to the garden at the back. Under a fruit tree Joan was seated, gazing up at the sky through the green tracery of the leaves. An open book lay in her lap, a book that wept with those who mourned and rejoiced with those who sang.
Gabriel stood there in silence before her, waiting till her eyes should end their communing with heaven. The sunlight, flashing through the boughs, set a golden coronet upon her hair. At last she looked to the earth once more, saw Gabriel standing near the cottage, his hands stretched out to her, a lover’s hands.
She gave a low cry, did Joan, and thrusting the book aside, rose up and sped to him.
“Gabriel!”
“Wife!”
The woman’s head was on the man’s shoulder and his arms were close about her body. In that glad meeting came the full consummation of all prayer and hope. Together they stood under the summer sky, while the spirit of June breathed over field and garden. The red rose had kissed the white, and heaven’s dew had touched the heart of many a flower.
“God has answered us,” said Joan, at last, lifting up her radiant face.
And Gabriel kissed her.
“You are happy?” he asked.