How would it be in that room when the sun set? Would she then have looked her last on Basil Stondon living. Should she thenceforth have to think of him as dead?
She crossed the room and, putting the curtains aside, looked out. It was a lovely morning in the early spring, and the birds were singing their fiercest—piping fit to burst their little throats for joy that it was daylight once again. All the east towards which she gazed was glorious with colour, and the distant sea lay like a lake reflecting back the sky.
Sadly, and with a gesture of utter weariness, Mrs. Stondon dropped the curtains and returned to her post. Her eyes were dazzled with the bright sunlight, and for the moment she could not see that Basil was awake and looking at her.
“Phemie,” he said; and then she knew he was saved. And while the sun rose higher and higher in the heavens—while the songs of the birds grew louder and more frantic—while the sea rolled gently in upon the shore—while every tree, and leaf, and shrub, and flower looked bright and glad in the light of morning—a great cry of exceeding joy ascended to the Throne of God; for the man was left to make a better thing of his life—to be a spendthrift of his time and a waster of his happiness, a faithless steward and a thankless unprofitable servant, never more.
She did not let him see his wife for a time. The illness had been too sharp to allow of sudden surprises—of much conversation during convalescence; but, as the days passed by, Phemie talked to him about his wife—about their unhappy disagreements—and openly and without reserve, as though she had been speaking of some other person, about herself.
Not without tears did she speak of that past Eden in which they had eaten of the fruit which brings forth death. Not unmoved did she talk of her own shortcomings—of her own repentance. From the old text she preached the sermon of their lives but as no good sermon ends without holding out some hope for him who turns from the evil of his ways, and seeks even at the eleventh hour to cleave to the right—so Phemie, having faith that every word she spoke was true, assured Basil it was certain he might yet know happiness, and come in time to think of the story I have told but as a trouble that had been borne—as sorrow which had been endured.
She made him comprehend, after much difficulty, how faulty he had been in his conduct towards his wife. Never did she weary of repeating to him her belief that it was in his own power to make or to mar the peace of every future hour.
“You have never understood each other—you have never tried to comprehend her—you have never allowed her to understand you; but now, as you must travel through your lives together, do try to travel peaceably.”
“And your future, Phemie,” he asked—“what of that?”
“It shall be happy, too,” she answered. “We do not look for a land without shadows when the noontime is over; but the land on which the evening light is shining may be very beautiful for all that.”