. . . The voice was unreal and almost incredible. The waxen mask with its set eyes and the small, fine mouth caught into a fixed smile—oh! this was not her husband!
She had been speaking with some Thing. Some Thing, dressed in Gilbert's flesh had come smirking into her quiet room. She had held it in her arms and prayed for it.
Drum, drum!—She put her left hand, the hand with the wedding ring upon it, over the madly throbbing heart.
And then, in her mind, she asked for relief, comfort, help.
The response was instant.
Her life had always been so fragrant and pure, her aims so single-hearted, her delight in goodness and her love of Jesus so transparently immanent, that she was far nearer the Veil than most of us can ever get.
She asked, and the amorphous elemental things of darkness dissolved and fled before heavenly radiance. The Couriers of the Wind of the Holy-Ghost came to her with the ozone of Paradise beating from their wings.
Doubtless it was now that some Priest-Angel gave Mary Lothian that last Viaticum which was to be denied to her from the hands of any earthly Priest.
It was a week ago that Mr. Medley had brought the Blessed Sacrament to Mary. It was seven days since she had thus met her Lord.
But He was with her now. Already of the Saints, although she knew it not, a Cloud of Witnesses surrounded her.