Dorothy's ear could not distinguish whether the tone was of indignation or of bitterness.
"You never heard me, Juliet," she answered, "profess any thing. If my surroundings did so for me, I could not help that. I never dared say I believed any thing. But I hope—and, perhaps," she went on with a smile, "seeing Hope is own sister to Faith, she may bring me to know her too some day. Paul says——"
Dorothy had been brought up a dissenter, and never said St. this one or that, any more than the Christians of the New Testament.
At the sound of the name, Juliet burst into tears, the first she shed, for the word Paul, like the head of the javelin torn from the wound, brought the whole fountain after it. She cast herself down again, and lay and wept. Dorothy kneeled beside her, and laid a hand on her shoulder. It was the only way she could reach her at all.
"You see," she said at last, for the weeping went on and on, "there is nothing will do you any good but your husband."
"No, no; he has cast me from him forever!" she cried, in a strange wail that rose to a shriek.
"The wretch!" exclaimed Dorothy, clenching a fist whose little bones looked fierce through the whitened skin.
"No," returned Juliet, suddenly calmed, in a voice almost severe; "it is I who am the wretch, to give you a moment in which to blame him. He has done nothing but what is right."
"I don't believe it."
"I deserved it."