"Are you sure that she did not add that it would be such an advantage to you?"
"Of course she did not." But Janetta blushed guiltily, nevertheless.
"And did you promise to accept the invitation?"
She smiled and shook her head.
"I thought you were such a devoted friend of hers!"
"I always tried to be a true friend to her. But you know I think, Wyvis, that some people have not got it in their nature to be true friends to anyone. And perhaps it was not—quite—in Margaret's nature."
"I agree with you," said Wyvis, more gravely than he had spoken hitherto. "She has not your depth of affection, Janetta—your strength of will. You have been a very true and loyal friend to those you have loved."
Janetta turned away her face. Something in his words touched her very keenly. After a pause, Wyvis spoke again.
"I have had reason since I saw you last to know the value of your friendship," he said seriously. "I want to speak to you for a moment, Janetta, before we join the others, about my poor Juliet. I had not, as you know, very many months with her after we left England. But during those few months I became aware that she was a different creature from the woman I had known in earlier days. She showed me that she had a heart—that she loved me and our boy after all—and died craving my forgiveness, poor soul (though God knows that I needed hers more than she needed mine), for the coldness she had often shown me. And she said, Janetta, that you had taught her what love meant, and she charged me to tell you that your lessons had not been in vain."
Janetta looked up with swimming eyes. "Poor Juliet! I am glad that she said that."