One afternoon I was standing by Jessy’s bed—for Miss Abigail had let me go up to see her. Mrs. Todhetley, that first day, had said she looked like a lily: she was more like one now. A faded lily that has had all its beauty washed out of it.
“Good-bye, Johnny Ludlow,” she said, opening her eyes, and putting out her feeble hand. “I shall not see you again.”
“I hope you will, Jessy. I’ll come over to-morrow.”
“Never again in this world.” And I had to lean over to catch the words, and my eyes were full.
“In the next world there’ll be no parting, Jessy. We shall see each other there.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You will be there, Johnny; I can’t tell whether I shall be. I turned Roman Catholic, you see; and Abigail won’t let a priest come. And so—I don’t know how it will be.”
The words struck upon me. The Miss Pages had kept the secret too closely for news of it to have come abroad. It seemed worse to me to hear it than to her to say it. But she had grown too weak to feel things strongly.
“Good-bye, Johnny.”
“Good-bye, Jessy dear,” I whispered. “Don’t fear: God will be sure to take you to heaven if you ask Him.”
Miss Abigail got it out of me—what she had said about the priest. In fact, I told. She was very cross.