"The angels wonder no less than you," he said.
Left alone with him once more, Margaret knelt, praying continually, but softly too, so as not to disturb one sacred thought in that soul for the first time united to its Saviour. When a half-hour had passed, she touched his folded hands. He had always before opened his eyes at her faintest touch; but now he did not.
"He has lost consciousness," the surgeon said, when she called him. "He will never speak again."
"Oh! never again? What? never again?"
Mr. Lewis took her by the hand. "Try to bear it, Maggie," he said. "Think what comfort you have."
"But he never said good-by to me! I wanted to say something to him. I had so much to tell him; but I thought of him first!"
Ah! well. When we go down to the valley of the shadow of death with our loved ones, and find the iron door that admits them shut in our faces, then indeed we know, if never before, how precious is faith. And those who can see the pearly gates beyond the iron one should take shame to themselves if they refuse to be comforted.