“But to us?” suggested Custance.
“Is there any cost to us, beyond the holding forth of empty hands to receive His great gift? I count, Madam, that as it is His best glory to give all, so it must be ours to receive all.”
“O Maude!” she wailed with a weary sigh, “when can I make me clean enough in His sight to receive this His gift?”
“Methinks, Lady mine, this woman which came into the Pharisee’s house was no cleaner ne fairer than other women. And, tarrying to make her clean, she might have come over late. Be not the emptiest meetest to receive gifts, and the uncleanest they that have most need of washing?”
“The most need,—ay.”
“And did ever an almoner ’plain that poor beggars came for his dole,—or a mother that her child were too much bemired to be cleansed?”
“Is there woman on middle earth this night, Maude, poorer beggar than I, or more bemired?”
“Sweet Lady!” said Maude very earnestly, “if you would but make trial of our Lord’s heart toward you! ‘Alle ye that traveilen and ben chargid, come to Me’—this is His bidding, dear my Lady! And His promise is, ‘I will fulfille you’—‘ye schal fynde reste to your soulis.’”
“I would come, if I knew how!” she moaned.
“Maybe,” said Maude softly, “they which would come an’ they knew how, do come after His reckoning. Howbeit, this wis I,—that an’ your Ladyship have will to come unto Him, He hath full good will to show you the way.”