“Don't cry,” said Maggie. “I should be the one to weep, ... only I am so happy ... to think ... I am loved by the noblest, best, of men, ... an' I love him so, ... only he ain't here; ... but I wouldn't have him see me die. Now—now ... what I want to know, Bishop, ...” she tried to rise. She seemed to be passing away. The old man caught her and held her in his arms.
Her eyes opened: “I—is—” she went on, in the agony of it all with the same breath, “am ... am I married ... in God's sight ... as well as his—”
The old man held her tenderly as if she were a child. He smiled calmly, sweetly, into her eyes as he said:
“You believed it an' you loved only him, Maggie—poor chile!”
“Oh, yes—yes—” she smiled, “an' now—even now I love him up—right up—as you see ... to the door, ... to the shadow, ... to the valley of the shadow....”
“And it went for these, for these”—he said looking around at the room.
“For them—my little ones—they had no mother, you kno'—an' Daddy's back. Oh, I didn't mind the work, ... the mill that has killed ... killed me, ... but, ... but was I”—her voice rose to a shrill cry of agony—“am I married in God's sight?”
Alice quivered in the beauty of the answer which came back from the old man's lips:
“As sure as God lives, you were—there now—sleep and rest; it is all right, child.”
Then a sweet calmness settled over her face, and with it a smile of exquisite happiness.