“Mrs. Carlyle, you have innocently, and I believe unconsciously, caused me the keenest suffering I have ever endured; and I feel assured you will not withhold the only reparation which you could render, or I accept. Will you promise to consecrate the remainder of your life to the service of Christ? Will you humble your defiant soul, and so spend your future, that when this brief earthly pilgrimage ends you can pass joyfully to the city of Rest? Girded with this hope, I can brave all trials,—can be content to look upon your face no more in this world,—can patiently wait for a reunion in that Eternal Home where they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage.”

“Oh, Dr. Grey, if it were possible!”

She clasped her hands and bowed her chin upon them, awed by his tones, and unable to met his grave, pleading eyes.

“Faith and prayer are the talismans that render all things possible to an earnest Christian; and it has been truly said ‘We mount to heaven mostly on the ruins of our cherished schemes, finding our failures were successes.’ Recollect,—

‘There is a pleasure which is born of pain:
The grave of all things hath its violet,’

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and do not indulge a corroding bitterness that has almost destroyed the nobler elements of your nature. I will exact no promise, but when I am gone, do not forget the request that my soul makes of yours. May God point out your work and help you to perform it faithfully. May His hand guide and uphold, and His merciful arms enfold you, now and forever, is and shall be my prayer.”

For a moment his hand lingered as if in benediction upon the drooping gray head, then he quietly turned and walked away, knowing full well that he was bidding adieu to the most precious of all earthly objects,—that he too was shattering a lovely “graven image,” before which his heart had fondly bowed.

As the sound of his firm step died away, the lonely woman lifted her face and looked after the form, vanishing in the gloom of the overarching trees. When he had disappeared, and she turned seaward, where the moon, as if inviting her to heaven, had laid a broad shining band of beaten silver from wave to sky,—the miserable wife raised her hands appealingly, and made a new covenant with her pitying God.

... “Wherefore thy life Shall purify itself, and heal itself,
In the long toil of love made meek by tears.”