“I am totally unacquainted with its details, and only know that since she became a widow, she has been a complete recluse. She is very unhappy, and we must exert ourselves to cheer her. This has been a lonely, dreary day to you, I fear, and I trust it will not be necessary for me to ask you to remain here to-night.”
The sun had set, leaving magnificent cloud-pictures on sky and sea, and while the orphan turned to enjoy the glorious prospect above and around her, Dr. Grey went in search of the lonely women who now continually occupied his thoughts.
She was standing under the pyramidal cedars, looking down at the new grave, where Salome’s wreath hung on the head-board, and hearing approaching footsteps would have moved away, but he said, pleadingly,—
“Do not avoid me.”
She paused, and suddenly held out her hands to him.
“Ah,—is it you? Dr. Grey, what shall I do? How can I bear to live here,—alone,—alone.”
He took her hands and looked down into her white, chill face.
“My dear friend, take your suffering heart to God, and He will heal, and comfort, and strengthen you. If He has sorely afflicted you, try to believe that Infinite love and mercy directed all things, and that ultimately every sorrow of earth will be overruled for your eternal repose and happiness. Remember that this world is but a threshing-floor, where angels use afflictions as flails, to beat the chaff and dust from our hearts, and present them as perfect grain for the garners of God. I know that you are desolate, but you can never be utterly alone, since the precious promise, ‘Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’”
Despairingly she shook her head.
“All that might comfort some people, but it falls on my ears and heart like the sound of the clods on Elsie’s coffin. I have no religion,—no faith,—no hope,—in time or eternity. My miserable past entombs all things.”