“Hadst thou surmised aforetime that it were he?”
Aunt Joyce shook her head.
“No need for surmising, Dulcie,” she said. “If I were laid in my grave for a year and a day, I should know his step upon the mould above me.”
“My poor Joyce!” softly quoth my Lady Stafford. “Even God hath no stronger word than ‘passing the love of women.’ Yet a woman’s love lasts not out to that in most cases.”
“Her heart lasts not out, thou meanest,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Hearts are weak, Dulcie, but love is immortal.”
“And hast thou still hope—for him, Joyce?” answereth my Lady. “I lost the last atom of mine, years gone.”
“Hope of his ultimate salvation? Ay—as long as life lasts. I shall give over hoping for it when I see it.”
“But,” saith my Lady slowly, as though she scarce liked to say the same, “how if thou never wert to see it?”
“‘Between the stirrup and the ground,
Mercy I sought, mercy I found.’
“Thou wist that epitaph, Dulcie, on him that lost life by a fall from the saddle. My seeing it were comfort, but no necessity. I could go on hoping that God had seen it.”