“Judith.”
“Well did I know my brother’s heart; now I know also the full reason of his great love. Were I a man, should I not love you even as Gabriel loves? Come, you are my sister, and I am proud of it.”
Silently, while the wind whistled over the hedgerows, these two good women looked long into each other’s eyes. The tears were dry upon Joan’s cheeks, but on Judith’s lashes there were fresh tears. Bending herself, she kissed Joan Gildersedge upon the mouth, held both her hands clasped fast between her own.
“That men have lied,” she said, “I believe full well, since I have seen you, I who am Gabriel’s sister. Yet is there not joy in such a grief as this, since love has triumphed over wrong and pain?”
Joan looked at her, even as one who sees pure water bubbling in a desert place.
“I had not thought that any could believe,” she said, “for the whole world seems built upon distrust.”
Judith took the wet cloak from Joan’s shoulders. Her own gray coat was dry, for she had sheltered from the showers under the trees. She gave it to Joan and would not be rebuked therefrom.
“To London,” she said, “you must not go to-night.”
Joan blushed, touched by an act that had more honest sympathy than had a hundred words. Since she was weary and tired at heart, such tyranny was very sweet.
“But what of Gabriel?” she asked.