“With no ostentation we saw her leave heaven and hover into space.
“As she had slept the night before we had placed the seed within her bosom, and she, unconscious, smiled and clasped my fingers in her hand as once her mother did when quite a child. We saw her go, and all heaven watched in silence, and she went smiling, not understanding why she went, but as some passing pleasure of the hour.
“Then there happened one of those unforeseen things that alter everything. By utter chance it happened that that day Vestasian had visited the earth, and as he flew up above the chain and mist he saw this lovely vision hovering there.
“He was surprised, no doubt, to see anything so weak and defenceless near that great battlefield. And she, not knowing friend from enemy, and feeling lonely in the great waste, drew towards him.
“And then began that which I told you of the other day. It was a case of hardness and strength trying to absorb softness and no strength—for that was what our daughter lacked. The only lasting and eternal strength within her was that which I had given, won from the earth. But at times, most curiously, there is strength in utter weakness, for Vestasian, acting on the impulse of the moment, despising and laughing at this weakness, caught her—and then was caught. For she had no strength to resist his all-absorbing strength; he no weakness with which to resist weakness. Almost within the instant they were joined—a union so perfect that it became imperfect, seeing it lacked one great element to keep the balance even. And so, in innocence, she went with him to hell; and at last the marriage had taken place, the one of which he spoke long since in jest. But as time went on, having on earth chosen Good and not Evil, and finding no principle of Good among these strangers she sickened, and at last died. All but those seeds of life and a frail skeleton of grace and beauty left her and passed to Vestasian, the only dowry she took to him—her life. Yet one thing she had hidden until the end—which only parted from her with her life—and that was our great secret, the seed of God to be imparted to humanity.
“And on the night she died and passed away from hell, drawn by the power of God again to heaven, she went with him to see the lost souls pray, and sang a song so sweet, so full of love and purity and light, that one would have thought the very walls might have melted into tears and gentleness. But not so those poor prisoners bound in darkness. They heard, yet could not hear, except for one tired, weary, worn-out soul whose term of prison life was over. He heard and soared with the last flicker of life towards the dying angel, and she, with that sweet thankfulness for trifles which always went with her, received this one as a gift most precious and clasped it to her bosom. The act was just in time, the mighty, hidden light she carried in her had passed beyond her feeble strength. From her it passed into the innermost cell of that soul cleansed by the fire of hell to an apparent newness.
“And Vestasian, blind with love, and blind with grief at the sad parting, which even he could scarcely understand, never noticed anything amiss, and let her return to me, who waited to carry her back to life and light. Then, as we passed the earth, we laid this soul, with its unconscious burden, within the lowly manger. Vestasian saw, yet saw not—neither did any of them at the time. And this pure Virgin Mother came back to heaven, and slept again the long, long sleep, and when she rose, refreshed and strengthened, stayed with us till she went again to him. And in the meantime, as the Saviour’s life advanced, they saw that we had solved their riddle, and recognised the part my daughter, Purity, had played in it.
“You remember well his life, of utter strength and utter weakness, the finest tragedy that e’er was played upon the earth.
“Surely then you yourself can read the rest. We, who had so humbled ourselves to send of our inmost being to the earth, were met with scoffs and laughter, misunderstood, and the outward sign of our presence, the body of Jesus, spat at and humbled to the very dust.