Then the old shepherd drew nearer, saying:
“Sisters of Israel, only believe. Beyond this stony gate there is an eternal home fairer than any dream. There all broken homes shall rise in joy, their treasures reunited and happy.”
Now Rizpah rose, and observing the speaker silently for a moment, she did not seem offended at the priest’s presence. Misery had overcome, at least for the time, her prejudice. Presently she exclaimed:
“My family reunited in heaven? Ah! that can not be, and if it were so, what joy to ever repeat the bickering, blamings and wrongs of this poor miserable life?”
“Thou wilt know as thou art known there and see eye to eye,” said the missioner.
“Oh, if it could be only so!”
“Wouldst like it so?”
“Yes, by the grave of my darlings, I swear it! I loved them with my life madly. All the love I had was concentrated in them. I knew when I began idolizing them that I had loved before full well my husband and daughter. I knew this, because the love I withdrew from them rushed forth to the boys. But my idols are dead, and now if my love do not dry up, it will hunger, feed on me myself, then turn to ferocity wolf-like.”
“Perhaps a husband restored may fill and enlarge thy heart. There never was a great sorrow but there stood near it a great joy,” spoke the priest.