"Father, I didn't mean to come in,—I didn't really; but I was so cold. Don't send me off, father! I couldn't walk so far,—I shall be out of your way in a little while,—the cough—"
"I send you away, Maggie? I—I might have done it once; God forgive me! He sent you back, my daughter,—I thank him."
A darkness swept over both faces then; she did not even hear Muff's whining cry at her ear.
"Mother," at last, the light of the room coming back, "there's Somebody who was wounded. I guess I'm going to find him. Will he forget it all?"
"All, Maggie."
For what did He tell the sin-laden woman who came to him once, and dared not look into his face? Was ever soul so foul and crimson-stained that he could not make it pure and white? Does he not linger till his locks are wet with the dews of night, to listen for the first, faint call of any wanderer crying to him in the dark?
So He came to Maggie. So he called her by her name,—Magdalene, most precious to him; whom he had bought with a great price; for whom, with groanings that cannot be uttered, he had pleaded with his Father: Magdalene, chosen from all eternity, to be graven in the hollow of his hand, to stand near to him before the throne, to look with fearless eyes into his face, to touch him with her happy tears among his sinless ones forever.
And think you that then, any should scorn the woman whom the high and lofty One, beholding, did thus love? Who could lay anything to the charge of his elect?
Perhaps he told her all this, in the pauses of the storm, for something in her face transfigured it.
"Mother, it's all over now. I think I shall be your little girl again."