“Take my knife again, Denise, before that! Do I not know, stroller and slut that I am! No, no, not that, not the dregs of other folks’ cups, not the shame and the sneers, and the curses thrown back in defiance. Why should these good folk drive us down to hell, why should their fat faces make cowards of us? There, I have been the coward, take the truth from me, and be warned, heart of mine. Better death, I say, before the ditch, for it is death in a ditch that we wretches come to. Brave it out, sister, and for God’s love keep your heart from bitterness, and from poisoning its own good blood.” She still held Denise close to her. “What did the woman St. Aguecheek say? Bah, all lies, I tell you. Such cow-eyed women lie for the sake of piety. The man say that of you? I know better. Come, Denise, listen to me; I know a man when I have looked him in the eyes.” She turned Denise’s face to hers and kissed her. “That was a clean kiss,” she said, “and by its cleanness I’ll swear that beldam Ursula lied. What of Messire Aymery? A man, child, a rock man with an arm that can smite. Grace be with me, but he would have given you his own heart to mend your broken one. I spoke with him, and I know.” Denise lay at rest in Marpasse’s lap. “Why should Ursula have lied?” she asked. “Why do dogs eat grass, and vomit? What! I know the woman, eyes that see the point of a pin and miss the moon, and a tongue like a clacker in a cherry tree. Love is lord of all, my dear, and what does that beldam know of love? Messire Aymery had his heart in his mouth that night. I judge that he let the old crow peck at it, and she took the pieces and poisoned them, and pushed them into your mouth. Go to now! Have a little faith.” She looked into Denise’s eyes and saw a change in them. A more dewy and credulous April had followed a dry and stormy March. Marpasse’s hand had stopped the former wound. She was healing the wound now in Denise’s soul. “God grant that you are right, Marpasse.” “Better, my dear, better. Lie in my arms and think them a man’s, and that man as honest as ever loved a woman. May I die in a ditch if I am mistaken! And now, what’s to do, as the sluggard says when all the rest have been three hours a-mowing.” Denise slipped out of Marpasse’s lap, and sat down close to her, but not so close that their bodies touched. This act of hers seemed to betray that she had come by her stronger self again. Marpasse’s scolding had set her upon her feet. “I shall stay with you,” she said simply. Marpasse opened her mouth wide, a black circle of mute expostulation. Denise looked in her eyes. “Why not both of us?” she asked. Marpasse’s mouth still stood open as though to scoff at her own redemption. Denise closed it with her own. “There is a clean kiss,” she said, “let us keep it for each other.” And Marpasse caught her to her, and was a long while silent.