“Because, I believe, she is a most miserable one.”
“Canst thou feel any pity for her?”
“It is not so easy as for him. Yet I suspect she needs it even more than he does. Christ have mercy on them both!”
“I cannot comprehend it,” said Clarice.
“I will tell thee one thing,” answered Heliet. “I would rather change with thee than with Sir Edmund the Earl; and a hundred times rather with thee than with the Lady Margaret. It is hard to suffer; but it is worse to be the occasion of suffering. Let me die a thousand times over with Saint Stephen, before I keep the clothes of the persecutors with Saul.”
Clarice stooped and lifted the child from the cradle.
“It is growing late,” she said. “I suppose we ought not to be up longer. Good-night, sweetheart, and many thanks for thy counsel. It is all true, I know; yet—”
“In twenty years, may be—or at the longest, when thou hast seen His Face in righteousness—dear Clarice, thou wilt know it, and want to add no yet.”
The soft tap of Heliet’s crutches had died away, but Clarice stood still with the child in her arms.
“It must be yet now, however,” she said, half aloud. “Do Thy will with me—cut me and perfect me; but, O God, leave me, leave me Rosie!”