At the sound of that voice, so like Gabriel’s in its mellow tone, a wave of color warmed Joan’s face, for she half guessed who stood before her. There were the same clear eyes, the same delicate features, pure and mobile, sensitive as light. Yet Joan’s heart failed her for the moment; her pride was quick in her despite her misery. “I am tired,” she said, hanging her head a little, “and have walked too far. I shall be better soon.” To Judith there was a pathos in the voice that made her heart open like a budding rose. Some deep instinct urged her on, to take rebuffs if they should come. “Have I not seen your face before?” Drawing near, she sat down beside Joan on the stones. The move was too sudden to be prevented. Yet Joan would not look into Judith’s eyes, but drew her wet cloak round her and hardened her heart. “I am only tired,” she said; “please do not trouble over me. I shall be strong again when I have rested.” Judith touched the other’s cloak. “Why, you are drenched!” she said; “have you far to go?” There were lines as of pain about Joan’s mouth; she shivered in the wind and seemed to strive for her breath. “To Rilchester,” she said, “and then—” “And then?” “To London, if I can catch a night train.” There was sudden silence between them, such a silence that their very hearts seemed to beat in rhythm, one with another. Judith’s eyes were full of light, a lustre of pity as though she guessed some part of the sorrow the other bore. Her heart grew full of dim surmises like a sky half smitten with the dawn. “To London?” she asked. Joan did not answer her. “You must not go to-night or you will catch your death chill. Have you not got a home near?” Then, like the breaking of gossamer by too heavy a dew, Joan’s courage seemed to fail her of a sudden and she broke into piteous weeping. No petulant child’s tears were they, but the grief of one whose cup of suffering was full. Judith’s words had shaken her very soul. She covered her wet face with her hands and bowed her head down over her knees. As for Judith, the strong presence of such grief as this stirred to the deeps her woman’s nature. A meaner woman would have fallen to texts, or to juggling glibly with God’s name. Judith’s heart beat straight towards the truth, and she did not squander empty words. Putting her arm about Joan’s waist, she drew her close to her, even into her bosom, feeling the intake of her breath under the damp clothes and the rain-drenched cloak. “Tell me,” she said, “what troubles you. Am I not a woman, also? May I not have some share in this?” Joan took her hands from before her face. In her eyes there burned a new courage, shining through a mist of tears. Should she not tell the truth for good or evil, silence this friend, or challenge her full trust? “Tell me,” she said, “are you Judith Strong?” “I am Judith Strong.” “And I am Joan—Joan Gildersedge.”