“Is it not faith,” she said, “that makes love love indeed?”
Before noon father and son had met in Saltire garden, under the cedar-tree at the end of the long lawn. They had gripped hands like men, and now paced shoulder to shoulder over the grass, talking together frankly and without restraint. The great trouble that had fallen upon both seemed to have strangled pride and to have broken down that barrier that had always stood between them. John Strong’s face was strangely altered. He seemed younger by some years, and he no longer stooped.
“Gabriel,” he said, bluntly, “whatever the past has brought us, let it be granted that I was the greater fool.”
“Not so, father,” retorted the son.
But even in the quaint thoroughness of his self-abasement, the elder man’s obstinacy played its part.
“Hang argument,” he said; “the facts are plain. No man likes owning that he was wrong, and I, sir, am no exception. But you struck for a principle, I for a prejudice. There is the truth in a nutshell.”
But Gabriel was not convinced.
“The fault was in measure mine,” he said, “even because I did not trust you as a son should.”
Under the trees, over the green grass below the banks of burning flowers, they saw Joan and Judith walking hand-in-hand. A calm light played upon Gabriel’s face; a smile flickered over John Strong’s stubborn mouth.
“Confound these women!” he said; “how they shame us.”