‘Ah,’ she said wistfully, ‘it is not for harm——’ and could say nothing more.
He laid his hand upon her arm and he said, ‘Do not fear; though they see you not, it is yet sweet, for a moment, to be there—and as you pass, it brings thoughts of you to their minds.’
For these two understood each other and knew that to see and yet not be seen is only a pleasure for those who are most like the Father, and can love without thought of love in return.
When he touched her it seemed to the little Pilgrim suddenly that everything changed round her, and that she was no longer in her own place but walking along a weary length of road. It was narrow and rough, and the skies were dim. And as she went on by the side of her guide she saw houses and gardens which were to her like the houses that children build, and the little gardens in which they sow seeds and plant flowers, and take them up again to see if they are growing. She turned to the Sage, saying, ‘What are——?’ and then stopped and gazed again, and burst out into something that was between laughing and tears. ‘For it is home,’ she cried, ‘and I did not know it! dear home.’ Her heart was remorseful, as if she had wounded the little diminished place.
‘This is what happens with those who have been living in the king’s palaces,’ he said, with a smile.
‘But I love it dearly, I love it dearly,’ the little Pilgrim said, stretching out her hands as if for pardon. He smiled at her, consoling her: and then his face changed and grew very grave.
‘Little sister,’ he said, ‘you have come not to see happiness but pain. We want no explanation of the joy, for that flows freely from the heart of the Father and all is clear between us and Him; but that which you desire to know is why trouble should be. Therefore you must think of Him and be strong, for here is what will rend your heart.’
The little Pilgrim was seized once more with mortal fear. ‘O friend,’ she cried, ‘I have done with pain. Must I go and see others suffering and do nothing for them?’
‘If anything comes into your heart to do or say, it will be well for them,’ the Sage replied: and he took her by the hand and led her into a house she knew. She began to know them all now as her vision became accustomed to the atmosphere of the earth. She perceived that the sun was shining though it had appeared so dim, and that it was a clear summer morning, very early, with still the colours of the dawn in the east. When she went indoors at first she saw nothing, for the room was darkened, the windows all closed, and a miserable watch light only burning. In the bed there lay a child whom she knew. She knew them all—the mother at the bedside, the father near the door, even the nurse who was flitting about disturbing the silence. Her heart gave a great throb when she recognised them all, and though she had been glad for the first moment to think that she had come just in time to give welcome to a little brother stepping out of earth into the better country, a shadow of trouble and pain enveloped her when she saw the others and remembered and knew. For he was their beloved child—on all the earth there was nothing they held so dear; they would have given up their home and all they possessed, and become poor and homeless and wanderers, with joy, if God, as they said, would have but spared their child. She saw into their hearts and read all this there, and knowing them she knew it without even that insight. Everything they would have given up and rejoiced, if but they might have kept him. And there he lay, and was about to die. The little Pilgrim forgot all but the pity of it, and their hearts that were breaking, and the vacant place that was soon to be. She cried out aloud upon the Father with a great cry. She forgot that it was a grief to Him in His great glory to refuse.
There came no reply: but the room grew light as with a reflection out of heaven, and the child in the bed, who had been moving restlessly in the weariness of ending life, turned his head towards her, and his eyes opened wide and he saw her where she stood. He cried out, ‘Look! mother, mother!’ The mother, who was on her knees by the bedside, lifted her head and cried, ‘What is it, what is it, O my darling?’ and the father, who had turned away his face not to see the child die, came nearer to the bed, hoping they knew not what. Their faces were paler than the face of the dying, upon which there was light; but no light came to them out of the hidden heaven. ‘Look! she has come for me,’ he said; but his voice was so weak they could not hear him, nor take any comfort. At this the little Pilgrim put out her arms to him, forgetting in her joy the poor people who were mourning, and cried out, ‘Oh, but I must go with him. I must take him home!’ For this was her own work, and she thought of her wonderings and her questions no more.