s and figures out of the years floating
fiercely and boldly past me. Was my strength and life sustained for
this, that I should just sleep awhile, and wake to fall into the pit of
suffering, far deeper than before?

If they could but come back to me for a moment; if I could feel Maud's
cheek by mine, or Maggie's arms round my neck; if they could but stand
by me smiling, in robes of light! Yet as in a vision I seem to see them
leaning from a window, in a blank castle-wall rising from a misty
abyss, scanning a little stairway that rises out of the clinging fog,
built up through the rocks and ending in a postern gate in the
castle-wall. Upon that stairway, one by one emerging from the mist,
seem to stagger and climb the figures of men, entering in, one by one,
and the three, with smiles and arms interlaced, are watching eagerly.
Cannot I climb the stair? Perhaps even now I am close below them, where
the mist hangs damp on rock and blade? Cannot I set myself free? No, I
could not look them in the face, they would hide their eyes from me, if
I came in hurried flight, in passionate cowardice. Not so must I come
before them, if indeed they wait for me.

The morning was coming in about the dewy garden, the birds piping faint
in thicket and bush, when I stumbled slowly, dizzied and helpless, to
my bed. Then a troubled sleep; and ah, the bitter waking; for at last I
knew what I had lost.

February 10, 1891.

"All things become plain to us," said the good vicar, pulling on his
gloves, "when we once realise that God is love--Perfect Love!" He said
good-bye; he trudged off to his tea, a trying visit manfully
accomplished, leaving me alone.

He had sate with me, good, kindly man, for twenty minutes. There were
tears in his eyes, and I valued that little sign of human fellowship
more than all the commonplaces he courageously enunciated. He talked in
a soft, low tone, as if I was ill. He made no allusions to mundane
things; and I am grateful to him for coming. He had dreaded his call, I
am sure, and he had done it from a mixture of affection and duty, both
good things.

"Perfect Love, yes--if we could feel that!" I sate musing in my chair.

I saw, as in a picture, a child brought up in a beautiful and stately
house by a grave strong man, who lavished at first love and tenderness,
ease and beauty, on the child, laughing with him, and making much of
him; all of which the child took unconsciously, unthinkingly, knowing
nothin