“Our Lady love us, no!” said I. “I never was, nor never could be.”
“I am glad to hear it,” she said.
“Why, Margaret?”
Oh, how my heart wanted to call her something sweeter! It said, My darling, my beloved, mine own little sister! But my tongue was all so unwonted to utter such words that I could not persuade it to say them.
Yet more to my surprise, Margaret came out of the window,—came and knelt at my feet, and laid her clasped hands on my knee.
“Hadst thou said ‘Ay,’ I should have spoken no more. As thou art not—Annora, is it true that we twain had one mother?”
Something in Margaret’s tone helped me. I took the clasped hands in mine own.
“It is true, mine own Sister,” I said.
“‘Sister!’ and ‘Mother!’” she said. “They are words that mean nothing at all to me. I wonder if God meant them to mean nothing to us? Could we not have been as good women, and have served Him as well, if we had dwelt with our own blood, as other maidens do, or even if—”
Her voice died away.