But doubtless even this comfort might not have lasted except that her old flux laid hold on her again and made her weak as death, too weak to mourn. She lay there on her bed for many days, purged body and heart, and all her sorrow and her comfort too in abeyance because she was not strong enough to mourn or hope. Many there were who came to exhort her, her neighbors and her cousin’s wife and they said, “Goodwife, after all the child was blind,” and they said, “Goodwife, what heaven has made for us we cannot change and it is useless to mourn for anything in this life.” And they said, “Remember your good sons,” and one day when the cousin’s wife said this the mother answered faintly, “Yes, but my elder son’s wife she does not bear, and my younger son he will not wed.” And the cousin’s wife answered heartily, “Give the elder son’s wife a year or two, cousin, for sometimes when seven years are passed barren, a woman will come to her true nature and bear a harvest of good children, for I have seen it so, and as for the lad’s saying he will not wed, why then he has a love somewhere, and we must find out who she is, and if she is fit for him to wed or not. Yes, truly has he found a love, as young folks will these days, for never was there a man in all the world, I swear, who would not wed!” But the mother whispered, “Bend down your ear, sister, and put it against my lips,” and when the cousin’s wife had done this the mother whispered, “Since sorrow follows me and everything goes wrong with me, I fear sometimes it is that old sin of mine that the gods know about--perhaps heaven will not give me grandsons!” And when she thought of this she closed her eyes and two great tears came out from under her closed lids. She thought of all her sins, not only the one the cousin’s wife knew of, but all the many times she had said she was widow and the letters that she wrote and all the lies. Not that she held the lies pure sin, since all must lie a little now and then for honor’s sake, but here the sin was, that she had lied and said her man was dead. Almost was it now when she thought of it as if she had put her hand forth and brought his death on him, and she had used this lie of death to hope another man would have her. So all these sins of hers, so old she could forget them many days together when she was well, came back fresh and now when she was weak and sorrowful, the heavier because she could not tell them all but must carry them in herself, and heaviest because she was a woman held in good repute among her fellows.