"What do you know, dear?" Viola asked her gently. She felt the stirrings of love in her towards this child, so loyal and so steel-true. Her quiet tears, leaning on her breast, had brought out the child in her. She had been dreadfully hurt too, and needed for herself the consolation that she had only thought of giving, with a strength and wisdom beyond her years. Viola kissed her again as she asked her question.
"I know that Harry is alive," said Jane, sitting upright and looking out across the waters of the pool, upon which there was not a tremor. It was as if it had hushed itself to listen. "This place seems to be full of him. I know why. It's because of the love that it holds. Love can't die; it's there for always. Harry loves you just as much as he did when you came here together. I believe he loves me too, just as he used to when I was little. Once he sent me a message, before anybody, because we were friends. Now I believe he's sending me a message again. He loves you. Yes, he does. It isn't that he did love you, and then he died and you've only got that to remember. He loves you now, and he'll never leave off loving you, till you see him again, and are happy together as you used to be."
Viola's eyes had been fixed on her, as if fascinated. Her utterance was almost prophetic in its rapt intensity. When she had spoken she nestled to Viola again, and said in a softer tone: "It makes me almost happy now, believing that. Don't you feel that it's true?"
"Do you really believe we shall meet again some day?" Viola asked. "If you'd asked me—before—I should have said I believed that. But it hasn't given me any comfort, up till now. I suppose I didn't really believe it, as I used to believe I should meet him again the next day here. If I could only know it!"
"But don't you feel that Harry's alive?" said Jane. "I do. If you can't feel it yet it's only because you've been so sad and so puzzled that you haven't known. But if I can feel it you will be able to more still, because Harry loved you so much. I think he wants you to feel it now."
It was Viola's turn now to look out across the water. "It would be like Harry," she said, slowly. "Oh, Jane, if it's only true!"
She put her hand to her breast, and a smile broke out upon her face—such a smile as had not lightened it these many days.
"Of course it's true," said Jane, in her decisive way. "It's part of our religion. We say every Sunday in church: 'I believe in the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.'"
"Ah, but that's not the same. I want to think of Harry as alive now. It seemed to come to me just now that he really is—like the sun breaking through the clouds. If that's true, Jane dear—if that's true, that my darling Harry is alive now somewhere, just like he used to be, and loving me all the time, and I only have to wait for a little before I see him again——"
"You won't even have to wait," said Jane, "if you know he's loving you, and you can go on loving him because he's alive, and not only remember what he was when he was here."