CHAPTER VII
| "I ride to a tourney with sordid things, They grant no quarter, but what care I? |
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I have bartered and begged, I have cheated and lied, But now, however the battle betide, Uncowed by the clamour, I ride ride, ride!" |
Victor Starbuck.
Joan did not see Aunt Janet again. Miss Abercrombie carried messages backwards and forwards between the two, but even Miss Abercrombie's level-headed arguments could not move Aunt Janet from the position she had taken up. And Miss Abercrombie was quite able to realize how much her old friend was suffering.
"I never knew a broken heart could bring so much pain," she told Joan; "but every time I look at your aunt I realize that physical suffering is as nothing compared to the torture of her thoughts."
"Why cannot she try to understand. Let me go to her," Joan pleaded. "If only I can speak to her I shall make her understand."
But Miss Abercrombie shook her head. "No, child," she said, "it would be quite useless and under the circumstances you must respect her wishes. I am fearfully sorry for both of you; I know that it is hurting you, too, but when you have wilfully or inadvertently killed a person's belief in you the only thing you can do is to keep out of their way. Time is the one healer for such wounds."