Fenella's eyes were down again.
"But that's not all. Not content with deserting him for so many years, you must try to disgrace him also."
"Janet!"
"Oh, I saw what you said at the trial."
"But nobody knows whom I...."
"Don't they indeed! The men may not—most of them are so stupid. They may even think you meant somebody else. But you can't deceive the women like that. And then he knew that you intended it for him. Just when you were about to become his wife, too, and you were the only woman in the world to him!"
"I was so shocked. I thought he wasn't the man I had taken him for."
"Perhaps he wasn't, perhaps he was, but thousands of women have lost faith in their men and clung to them for all that, and they're the salt of the earth, I say. I'm only an old maid myself, but to stand up for your husband, right or wrong, that's what I call being a wife, if you ask me."
Fenella could bear up no longer. She flung her arms about Janet's neck and buried her face in her breast.
The darkness was gathering before they broke from their embrace and then it was time for Janet to smooth out her silvery hair and go. Fenella saw her to the carriage and whispered as she kissed her,