“I wonder why I did it?” she asked herself again, and again she could not answer the question.  She felt that she might have lied had it been merely a lie and not a test of courage before her; but she could not lie simply because she was afraid of speaking the truth.  In every character there is one supreme vice or virtue which strikes the deepest root and blossoms most luxuriantly, and in the character of Gabriella this virtue was courage.  At the crucial moments of life some primordial instinct prompted her to fight, not to yield.  “I ought to have been evasive, I suppose,” she thought regretfully.  “But how could I have been?” There were instants, she had discovered, when wisdom surrendered to the more militant virtues.

When she reached home she found Fanny, who was fretfully recovering from influenza, lying on the sofa in the living-room, with Miss Polly busily stitching at her side, while Archibald, excited by a strenuous afternoon with the son of the Italian fruit dealer, was kneeling before the window, making mysterious signs to a group of yellow-haired German children in the apartment house on the opposite side of the street.  Both children were eagerly expecting their mother, and as soon as she entered they grew animated and cheerful.

She kissed and cuddled them, and listened sympathetically to their excited stories of the day, and of Dr. French, who had been to see Fanny, and who had waited as long as he could.

“He’s going to take us for a drive to-morrow, mother, and we’re to sit in the carriage while he goes in to pay his calls, and then he’s to show us the river and we’re to stop somewhere to have tea.”

“Did he stay long?” asked Gabriella of Miss Folly.

“For more than an hour,” replied Miss Folly, and commented shrewdly after a minute:  “It looks to me as if there was more in that young man than you can see on the surface, Gabriella.”

A blush tinged Gabriella’s cheek, but she shook her head almost indignantly.  “Oh, there’s nothing of that kind,” she answered emphatically, and rose to take off her hat and prepare supper.

Since her illness of a year ago, when she had summoned the strange young doctor who had once been the assistant of the Fowlers’ family physician, she had grown to feel a certain dependence upon Dr. French as the only useful friend who was left to her.  He was a thin, gray-eyed, fair-haired young man, who practised largely among the poor, from choice rather than from necessity, since Dr. Morton had given him an excellent start in life.  His pale, ascetic face had attracted Gabriella from their first meeting; there was the flamelike enthusiasm of the visionary in his eyes; and he had, she thought, the most beautiful and sympathetic hands she had ever seen.  Even Fanny, who was usually impervious to sensitive impressions, felt the charm of his touch when he stroked her forehead or placed his long, delicate fingers on her wrist.  From that first visit he had been a source of comfort