"No need for surmising, _Dulcie_," she said. "If I were laid in my grave for a year and a day, I should know his step upon the mould above me." "My poor _Joyce_!" softly quoth my Lady _Stafford_. "Even God hath no stronger word than `passing the love of women.' Yet a woman's love lasts not out to that in most cases." "Her heart lasts not out, thou meanest," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Hearts are weak, _Dulcie_, but love is immortal." "And hast thou still hope--for him, _Joyce_?" answereth my Lady. "I lost the last atom of mine, years gone." "Hope of his ultimate salvation? Ay--as long as life lasts. I shall give over hoping for it when I see it." "But," saith my Lady slowly, as though she scarce liked to say the same, "how if thou never wert to see it?" "`Between the stirrup and the ground, Mercy I sought, mercy I found.' "Thou wist that epitaph, _Dulcie_, on him that lost life by a fall from the saddle. My seeing it were comfort, but no necessity. I could go on hoping that God had seen it." Aunt _Joyce_ arose and left the chamber. Then saith my Lady _Stafford_ to me-- "There goes a strong soul. There be women such as she: but they are not to be picked, like blackberries, off every bramble. _Edith_, young folks are apt to think love a mere matter of youth and of matrimony. They cannot make a deeper blunder. The longer love lasts, the stronger it groweth." "Always, my Lady?" said I. "Ay," saith she. "That is, if it be love." We wrought a while without more talk: when suddenly saith my Lady _Stafford_:-- "_Edith_, didst thou see this _Tregarvon_, or how he called himself?" "Ay, Madam," said I. "He made up to me one morrow, when my sister _Milisent_ and I were on Saint _Hubert's_ Isle in the mere yonder, and I was sat, a-drawing, of a stone." "Ay so?" quoth she, with some earnestness in her voice. "And what then?" "I think he took not much of me, Madam," said I. My Lady _Stafford_ smiled, yet methought somewhat pensively. "May I wit what he said to thee, _Edith_?" "Oh, a parcel of stuff touching mine hair and mine eyes, and the like," said I. "I knew well enough what colours mine hair and eyes were of, without his telling me. Could I dress mine hair every morrow afore the mirror, and not see?" "Well, _Edith_," saith she, "methinks he did not take much of thee. I would I could have seen him,"--and her voice grew sadder. "Not that my voice should have had any potency with him: that had it never yet. But I would fain have noted how far the years had changed him, and if--if there seemed any more hope of his amendment than of old time. There was a time when in all _Oxfordshire_ he was allowed the goodliest man, and I fear he was not far from being likewise the worst." Here come in _Mother_, and my Lady _Stafford_ changed the discourse right quickly. I saw I must say no more. But I am well assured Aunt _Joyce's Mary_ was never my Lady _Stafford_. Who methinks it were it should serve no good end to set down.