"Have you been coughing much to-day?" asked the gate-keeper.
"Yes, a good deal—before I came out. But it does not seem to do much good."
"What good would you have it do?"
"I mean, it doesn't do much to get it over. Oh, Mr. Polwarth, I am so tired!"
"Poor fellow! I suppose it looks to you as if it would never be over. But all the millions of the dead have got through it before you. I don't know that that makes much difference to the one who is going through it. And yet it is a sort of company. Only, the Lord of Life is with you, and that is real company, even in dying, when no one else can be with you."
"If I could only feel he was with me!"
"You may feel his presence without knowing what it is."
"I hope it isn't wrong to wish it over, Mr. Polwarth?"
"I don't think it is wrong to wish anything you can talk to him about and submit to his will. St. Paul says, 'In everything let your requests be made known unto God.'"
"I sometimes feel as if I would not ask him for anything, but just let him give me what he likes."