"not singly, but in
battalions." After the first shock of realisation, one perceives
through the darkness that the strength to bear them has come also, like
some good angel.

A lover shudders at the thought of Death, yet knows that some day, on
the road they walk together, the Grey Angel with the white poppies will
surely take one of them by the hand. The road winds through shadows,
past many strange and difficult places, and wrecks are strewn all along
the way. They laugh at the storms that beat upon them, take no reck of
bruised feet nor stumbling, for, behold, they are together, and in that
one word lies all.

Sometimes, in the mist ahead, which, as they enter it, is seen to be
wholly of tears, the road forks blindly, and there is nothing but night
ahead for each. The Grey Angel with the unfathomable eyes approaches
slowly, with no sound save the hushed murmur of wings. The dread white
poppies are in his outstretched hand--the great, nodding white poppies
which have come from the dank places and have never known the sun.

There is no possible denial. At first, one knows only that the
faithful hand has grown cold, then, that it has unclasped. In the
intolerable darkness, one fares forth alone on the other fork of the
road, too stricken for tears.

At length there is a change. Memories troop from the shadow to whisper
consolation, to say that Death himself is powerless against Love, when
a heart is deep enough to hold a grave. The clouds lift, and through
the night comes some stray gleam of dawn. No longer cold, the dear
hand nestles once more into the one that held it so long. Not as an
uncertain presence but as a loved reality, that other abides with him
still.

Shut out forever from the possibility of estrangement, for there is
always that drop of bitterness in the cup of Life and Love; eternally
beyond the reach of misunderstanding or change, spared the pitfalls and
disasters of the way ahead, blinded no longer by the mists of earth,
but immortally and unchangeably his, that other fares with him, though
unseen, upon the selfsame road.

From the broken night comes singing, for the white poppies have also
brought balm. Step by step, his Sorrow has become his friend, and at
the last, when the old feet are weary and the steep road has grown
still more steep, the Grey Angel comes once more.

Past the mist of tears in which he once was shrouded, the face of the
Grey Angel is seen to be wondrously ki