"Of course!" I said rather indignantly. "Guy could never be to strangers what he is to me! Why, holy Mother, with all deference, you yourself know that. He is not that to you."
"Thou hast spoken the very truth," said she. "But, Helena, that which he is to thee, and not to me,—that dearest in all the world, ay, in all the universe,—my child, Christ is that to me."
I looked at her, and I saw the soft, radiant light in the grey eyes: and I could not understand it. Again that strange, mortified feeling took possession of me. Lady Judith knew something I did not; she had something I had not; and it was something which made her happier than any thing had yet made me. There was a gulf between us; and I was on the rocky, barren side of it, and she on the one waving with corn and verdant with pasture.
It was not at all a pleasant feeling. And I could see no bridge across the gulf.
"You are a religious person, holy Mother," said I. "I suppose that makes the difference."
Yet I did not believe that, though I said so. Old Marguerite was no nun; and she was on the flowery side of that great gulf, as well as Lady Judith. And if Lady Sybil were there also, she was no nun. That was not the difference.
"No, maiden," was Lady Judith's quiet answer. "Nor dost thou think so."
I hung my head, and felt more mortified than ever.
"Dost thou want to know it, Helena?"
"Holy Mother, so much!" I said, bursting into tears. "You and Marguerite seem to me in a safe walled garden, guarded with men and towers; and I am outside in the open champaign, where the wolves are and the robbers, and I do not know how to get in to you. I have been round and round the walls, and I can see no gate."