She took his hand and the boy followed, lost in wonder and admiration.
“I used to know poor little Joan,” she said very gently.
“Yes, Mistress, I had guessed as much; we heard in Kirkoswald what had happened,” and the boy’s eyes filled with tears. “I know that you did everything for her that could be done and that she loved you.”
Aline felt relieved, as she was spared the worst part of her task. “She often used to speak of you, Wilfred, and before she went away, she gave me her greatest treasures which you had given her long before; and I was to try and return them to you. But, alas, I had to flee from armed men at a moment’s notice in peril of my life and I have them not. But they are safe and one day I will fulfil my charge.”
She held out her hand. “Oh, I am so sorry for you,” she said, “but my words are too feeble to say what I feel.”
The tears were now running freely down the boy’s face, he took her hand in both his and smothered it with kisses. “Oh, Joan, Joan, my little Joan, how can I bear it? How can you really be dead and I alive? Why is the world so cruel? Oh, Joan, if only I could have died for you.”
Aline bent over and kissed him on the forehead. “She told me to give you that,” she said; then, after a pause, she went on;—“I am only a little girl and I do not pretend to understand things, Wilfred. But think, if you had died as you have been wishing, poor little Joan would have been as unhappy as you are now. These things are a mystery and yet somehow I feel that the spirit of light in its own way and its own time must triumph over the spirit of darkness. I have always felt that; and now that I have my new faith, I am more sure of it than ever.”
“I do not see how that can be,” said Wilfred, “and yet as you speak I seem to feel better.”
“I do not understand it myself,” said Aline, “but I have been right before.”