“The thought is suggestive, at least, and will help me out. I suppose these things are of slow growth in the human mind, like all things in nature?”
“They would not be of the soul were they not slow, and of little value to us did they not ripen in the warmth and nurture of our own sunshine.”
“True. I would know more of these things. They give me strength to bear life's burdens much better, and although they seem to take my thoughts from my duties, I seem to be brought nearer to them; yet I cannot quite comprehend how it is.”
“This influence does not take your mind away; it lifts it above your cares, and makes you more contentedly subjective to the law that governs. Truth ever renders us content to bear, while it liberates us from thraldom.”
“I know that my life beyond will be richer and nobler for what little I have of these truths here. You have greatly blest me-”
“And blest myself,” she added, seeing the rich gratitude of his soul falter with the poverty of words.
He took her hand, pressed it warmly in token of his deep indebtedness, and they parted, to meet no more on earth, save in spirit. That night the death-angel came. He was seized with hemorrhage of the lungs, and died instantaneously.
The wife of the world, whom position and society had chained him to, put on robes of mourning, and in three months was a gay, flirting widow, while he was happy in the summer land, joined to his mate, the bride of his soul's first love.
For a long time Dawn felt not the presence of either Clarence or Margaret. They were away, reposing in the atmosphere of forgiveness and love, and learning that “it is not all of life to live, nor all of death to die.”
Dawn sat beside Basil as an old friend, holding a likeness of Ralph in her hand.