“‘My father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!’”
Bruno let her weep passionately, until the first burst of grief was over. Then he said, gently, “Be comforted, my Beatrice. I believe that he sleeps in Jesus, and that God shall bring him with Him.”
“He was not baptised?” asked Beatrice, in some surprise that Bruno should think so.
“He was ready for it. He had spoken to a friend of mine—one Friar Saher de Kilvingholme—on the subject. And the Lord would not refuse to receive him because his brow had not been touched by water, when He had baptised him with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”
Perhaps scarcely any priest then living, Bruno excepted, would have ventured so far as to say that.
“Oh, this is a weary world!” sighed Beatrice, drearily.
“It is not the only one,” replied her father.
“It seems as if we were born only to die!”
“Nay, my child. We were born to live for ever. Those have death who choose it.”
“A great many seem to choose it.”