"Have you?"
"Ariel," he said, "that isn't fair to me, if you trust me. You could not have helped seeing—"
"But I have not seen it," she interrupted, with great calmness. After having said this, she finished truthfully: "If he did, I would never let him tell me. I like him too much."
"You mean you're not going to—"
Suddenly she turned to him. "NO!" she said, with a depth of anger he had not heard in her voice since that long-ago winter day when she struck Eugene Bantry with her clenched fist. She swept over him a blinding look of reproach. "How could I?"
And there, upon the steps of the church, in the sudden, dazzling vision of her love, fell the burden of him who had made his sorrowful pilgrimage across Main Street bridge that morning.
A manifold rustling followed them as they went down the aisle, and the sibilance of many whisperings; but Joe was not conscious of that, as he took his place in Ariel's pew beside her. For him there was only the presence of divinity; the church was filled with it.
They rose to sing:
"Ancient of days, Who sittest, throned in glory,
To Thee all knees are bent, all voices pray;
Thy love has blest the wide world's wondrous story
With light and life since Eden's dawning day."
And then, as they knelt to pray, there were the white heads of the three old friends of Eskew Arp; and beyond was the silver hair of Martin Pike, who knelt beside his daughter. Joe felt that people should be very kind to the Judge.