Dora meanwhile had her own thoughts. She was lost in memories of that first talk of hers with David Grieve after his return from Paris, with the marks of his fierce, mysterious grief fresh upon him; then, pursuing her recollection of him through the years, she came to a point of feeling where she said, with sudden energy, throwing her arm round Lucy, and taking up the thread of their conversation:—
'I wouldn't let what Louie said worry you a bit, Lucy. Of course, she wanted to make mischief; but you know, and I know, what sort of a man David has been since you and he were married. That'll be enough for you, I should think.'
Lucy flushed. She had once possessed very little reticence, and had been quite ready to talk her husband over, any day and all day, with Dora. But now, though she would begin in the old way, there soon came a point when something tied her tongue.
This time she attacked the lilac-bushes again with a restless hand.
'Why, I thought you were shocked at his opinions,' she said, proudly.
Dora sighed. Her conscience had not waited for Lucy's remark to make her aware of the constant perplexity between authority and natural feeling into which David's ideals were perpetually throwing her.
'They make one very sad,' she said, looking away. 'But we must believe that God, who sees everything, judges as we cannot do.'
Lucy fired up at once. It annoyed her to have Dora making spiritual allowance for David in this way.
'I don't believe God wants anything but that people should be good,' she said. 'I am sure there are lots of things like that in the New Testament.'
Dora shook her head slowly. '"He that hath not the Son, hath not life,"' she said under her breath, a sudden passion leaping to her eye.