Isabel began to cry quietly.
"Don't cry, Isabel; I am so sorry that I have upset you, and I hate to talk in this horrid, depressing way. But I felt I must tell you just once that, when the end comes, you will find that nothing really matters except the love of God and our love for each other; and I want you to realize this before it is too late."
Isabel came and knelt down by Joanna's sofa. "Do you think that Paul could forgive me?" she asked.
"I should think so; there is nothing that real love cannot forgive, and I am sure that Paul really loved you."
"How do you know so much about love, Joanna?"
"I can't tell; I suppose every woman knows all about it, whether she has tasted it or not. That is one of the things that I used to think I could teach the Lord; I imagined that it was best for me—and for every other woman—to live the ordinary woman's happy life. But God knew better, and so love passed me by."
"Poor Joanna!"
Joanna rested her cheek against Isabel's. "You need not pity me now, dear; I have long ceased to mind, though I did dreadfully at one time. But when God withholds a thing from us, He always gives us something better in its place. It is hard, I admit, to stand alone on Pisgah, and to see the others going on without us into the Promised Land; but Pisgah and its disappointment are forgotten, after we have stood for a moment upon the Mount of Transfiguration, and have caught glimpses of the glory which shall be revealed."
After a moment's silence Isabel said softly: "I don't believe there ever was anybody so good as you and Paul."
"Paul is a good man; no one but father and mother and I quite knows how good, I think."