She had known the truth when she told Rupert he might come again, knowing that her days were actually numbered, that the end of which she had told him, was very close at hand.
And so it was, that when Rupert Mernside next journeyed down to the lonely house in the valley, where the touch of spring lay on woodland and copse, where primroses lifted starry eyes under the hazels, and wind flowers swung in the April breeze, he came to follow Margaret to the quiet churchyard on the hill-side.
Christina had chosen the place where her grave should be—Christina, who had been with her at the end, who had seen the amazing radiance of her face, when the end came. All night she had lain in a state of profound unconsciousness, from which they had not thought she would ever rally. But as morning broke, as the sunlight shone in through the uncurtained window, Margaret's eyes opened, and that amazing radiance flashed into them, the smile on her face making the girl who watched her, draw a swift breath of wonder. It was evident that the dying woman knew nothing of what passed in the room about her; her eyes looked, not at surrounding objects, but at something beyond, and away from them all—something that was coming towards her, or towards which she was going.
"Max," she said, her voice grown suddenly strong. "Ah! Max—I knew—you would wait for me. I—knew—you would be there," and with that wonderful radiance in her eyes, that wonderful smile upon her face, she had passed out into the Rest, that lies about our restless world.
"I think she would like to lie just here," Christina said, when, walking round the churchyard with Sir Arthur and Dr. Fergusson, they came to a halt under a low wall, from which the ground sloped abruptly away, in a series of terraces. In that sunny corner, violets nestled against the grey stones, their fragrance drifting out upon the April breeze, and on the wall itself, a robin sat and sang, of spring-time, of resurrection, of life.
"She would like this place," the girl repeated softly. "It is so still and sunny, and the great view is so beautiful—like herself, so beautiful and restful," she added under her breath, so that only Fergusson heard the words.
Sir Arthur, a more quiet and subdued Sir Arthur, looked across the sloping churchyard to the great sweep of country, whose horizon was bounded by far blue hills, and perhaps some faint perception of Christina's meaning filtered into his narrow soul, although he only said:—
"I wonder why she wished to be buried here. I should have thought she would have liked to be near her husband."
"I don't think she felt she was ever far away from him," Christina answered, carried out of herself for the moment, and forgetting her usual awe of her grim uncle. "She knew that wherever their bodies might be, she and he would be together. She knew they could not ever be really apart—he and she."
Sir Arthur looked at her without replying. His silence was a strange testimony to Margaret's power, for he was kept silent by the unaccustomed feeling (a feeling experienced for the first time in his self-sufficient existence)—that in his sister, and in the new niece who looked at him with such certainty in her eyes, he had come face to face with forces of which he was ignorant. Perhaps he could not, or would not, have put this feeling into words, nevertheless, it was there, far down in his heart, a new factor to be reckoned with, if ever he chose to reckon with it. The day of Margaret's funeral was one of those perfect spring days, which come to us sometimes as a foretaste of summer. Beyond the little churchyard, the wide expanse of moorland lay flooded with sunshine, spikes of young bracken showing vividly green amongst the brown of the heather, clumps of gorse shining golden in the sunlight, a soft mist of green upon the hazel copses at the moorland's foot. Larks sprang singing to the April sky, and upon the stone wall close against the open grave, a robin sat once more, and sang his song, of resurrection, of life, of love.