"My love has been a selfish one because I never thought it lay in my power to do anything for—him. I see there is something now that I can do—and I mean to do it so thoroughly that even his goodness cannot prevent. He is so very, very good; oh! if you could only know him as I know him!
"I am—going to my husband, then—that will finish it! But I must tell you something—first."
Joyce caught her breath, and she sat up straight and rigid.
"I suppose in your life you could not believe that a man like Mr. Gaston could be just good to me—and nothing else?"
Woman looked at woman. The world's woman noted the beauty and tender grace of the unworldly woman, and her eyes fell.
"It would be difficult to believe that. I have heard of such cases—I never knew one—and for that very reason of unbelief, it does not greatly matter—the outcome would be the same—for the woman and the man."
"Yes; but they would know, and God would know; might that not be enough?"
"No. Believe me—it would not be enough."
"Do you believe me when I tell you that, in this case, it is true?"
Again the two held each other in a long challenge. Then: