“Nay, sweet heart!” said she, “thinkest thou he would any thing save thy comfort and gladness? He is passed into the land where (saith David) all things are forgotten—to wit, (I take it) all things earthly and carnal, all things save God; and when ye shall meet again in the body, it shall be in that resurrection where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are equal unto the angels.”
“All things forgotten!” she faltered. “Hath he forgot me? They must sleep, then; that is a kind of forgetting. But if I were awake and witful, I never could forget him. It were not I that did so.”
“Let us leave that with God, beloved,” answered Isoult.
“O Isoult,” she murmured, her tears beginning to drop fast, “I would do God’s will, and leave all to Him: but is this God’s will? Thou little knowest how I am tortured and swayed to and fro with doubt. It was easier for thee, that hadst but a contract to fulfil.”
Isoult remembered the time before she had ever seen her husband, when it did not look very easy. She scarcely knew what she ought to answer. She only said—
“Dear heart, if thou do truly desire to do only God’s will, methinks He will pardon thee if thou lose thy way.”
“It looketh unto me at times,” she said, “as if it scarce could be right, seeing it should lift me above want, and set me at ease.”
This was a new thought to Isoult, and she was puzzled what to say. But in the evening she told John, and asked his advice. Much to her astonishment, he, usually gentle, pulled to the casement with a bang.
“Is that thine answer, Jack?” said Isoult, laughing.
“Somewhat like it,” answered he drily. “’Tis no marvel that ill men should lose the good way, when the true ones love so much to walk in byepaths.”