“Trust me that He can. I never knew it till I came to Him.”
“But are you at rest? You scarcely looked so just now.”
“At rest,” said the Grey Lady, “except when a breeze of earth stirs the soul which should be soaring above earth—when the dreams of earth come like a thick curtain between that soul and the hope of that Heaven—as it was just now.”
“Then you are not exempt from that?”
“In coming to Christ for rest, we do not leave our human hearts and our human infirmities behind us—assuredly not.”
“Then do you think it wrong to desire to beloved?”
“Not wrong to desire Christ’s love.”
“But to desire the love of some human being, or of any human being?”
The eremitess paused an instant before she answered.
“I should condemn myself if I said so,” she replied in a low tone, the sad cadence returning to her voice. “I must leave that with God. He hath undertaken to purge me from sin, and He knows what is sin. If that be so, He will purge me from it. I have put myself in His hands, to be dealt with as pleaseth Him; and my Physician will give me the medicines which He seeth me to need. Let me counsel you to do the same.”