She only followed, followed with all her heart and soul and strength, up the little hill, up the path, up to the porch, a strange, shaking pilgrim, leaning heavily on her staff, guided by the white pigeon.
On the steps they received her, and as she sank on the lowest, they caught her, falling. Her almost sightless eyes were yet uplifted, and while to their view the dove dropped down among its mates, a patch among the white, to her it was mingled with the summer blue, and vanished in the sky whence it came.
Her body was utterly exhausted, but her spirit could not yet lose its consciousness. On the wave of her exaltation she rose higher and higher. She looked at them with a look they had never seen in any human being.
"I'm saved! I'm saved!" she cried.
They watched her, silent, terrified, awed beyond words at this redemption they could only feel but could not understand. But as they stared, her eyes glazed, her head fell back against the matron's arm.
"Pray! pray!" she whispered. The pastor looked at her and steadied himself. Wonder and a sense of strength flowed in on him suddenly. But there was scant time for prayer. Though the light in her face had not yet died away, her breath was scarcely moving. He came near her and repeated gently the hymn she had in the time of her trouble disowned, but which she had always loved:
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly host——"
Her eyes opened and looked wide into the blue; what she saw there they did not know, but she smiled faintly.