“The worst Nemesis in this life, monsieur, is always a woman,” she interrupted.
“Perhaps she is the surest,” he continued. “The woman faced him in the hour of his peace and--” he paused. His voice was husky.
“And he knows that she would ruin him, and kill his heart and destroy his life.”
“The waters of Marah are bitter,” she murmured, and she turned her face away from him to the woods. There was no trouble there. The birds were singing, black squirrels were jumping from bough to bough, and they could hear the tapping of the woodpecker. She slowly drew on her gloves, as if for occupation.
He spoke at length as though thinking aloud: “But he knows that, whatever comes, life has had for him more compensations than he deserves. For, in his trouble, a woman came, and said kind words, and would have helped him if she could.”
“There were TWO women,” she said solemnly.
“The one stayed in her home and prayed, and the other came.”
“I do not understand,” he said: and he spoke truly.
“Love is always praying for its own, therefore one woman prayed at home. The other woman who came was full of gratitude, for the man was noble, she owed him a great debt, and she believed in him always. She knew that if at any time in his life he had done wrong, the sin was without malice or evil.”
“The woman is gentle and pitiful with him, God knows.”
She spoke quietly now, and her gravity looked strange in one so young.
“God knows she is just, and would see him fairly treated. She is so far beneath him! and yet one can serve a friend though one is humble and poor.”
“How strange,” he rejoined, “that the man should think himself miserable who is befriended in such a way! Mademoiselle, he will carry to his grave the kindness of this woman.”
“Monsieur,” she added humbly, yet with a brave light in her eyes, “it is good to care whether the wind blows bitter or kind. Every true woman is a mother, though she have no child. She longs to protect the suffering, because to protect is in her so far as God is.... Well, this woman cares that way....” She held out her hand to say good-bye. Her look was simple, direct, and kind. Their parting words were few and unremarkable.
Roscoe watched Justine Caron as she passed out into the shade of the woods, and he said to himself: “Gratitude like that is a wonderful thing.” He should have said something else, but he did not know, and she did not wish him to know: and he never knew.