'Ah, Christian! Child, where is my Christian? His face would tell me briefly all I most would know.'
'You have listened to an ugly tale. I know—I know—I have seen Philip. You must not consider it yet, till you have heard all. I own it not out of accord with the rest, that reason just shudders and fails at; but through all the dark of this unfathomable mystery my eyes can discern the passing of our Christian white and blameless.'
'Your eyes!' moaned Lois.
Rhoda understood. She hid her face and could not speak. In her heart she cried out against this punishment as more than she deserved, and more than she could bear. No word that she could utter, no protest, no remorse, could cover a wrongful thing she had said for Lois to recall. So small the sin had looked then; so great now. She had spoken fairly of deadly sin just once, and now Lois could not rely on her for any right estimate, nor abide by her ways of regard.
'Ah, Christ!' she whispered in Christian's words, 'is there no forgiveness of sins?'
Lois heard that, and it struck her to the heart.
Rhoda took up her burden again.
'Christian loved one Diadyomene. What she was I dare not think: she was shaped like a woman, very beautiful. Dead she is now; I have seen her new grave. God have mercy on her soul, if any soul she have.
'I have known this for long, for some months.'
'He told—you!'