as her belief in guardian angels, and that it had been given
to her mortal eyes to behold and commune with a beloved ghost, is there
not ample warrant for them in those inspired writings? Were not the dead
seen of many in Jerusalem on the night of fear, and are we not told of
"ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of them
that shall inherit salvation?" and of the guardian angels, who look
continually upon the Father?

Now it all grew clear to Morris. In Stella he beheld an example of
the doctrines of Christianity really inspiring the daily life of the
believer. If her strong faith animated all those who served under that
banner, then in like circumstances they would act as she had acted.
They would have no doubts; their fears would vanish; their griefs be
comforted, and, to a great extent, even the promptings and passions of
their mortality would be trodden under foot. With Stella they would be
ready to neglect the temporary in their certainty of the eternal, and
even to welcome death, to them in truth, and not in mere convention, the
Gate of Life.

Many things are promised to those who can achieve faith. Stella achieved
it and became endued with some portion of the promise. Spiritual faith,
not inherited, nor accepted, but hard-won by personal struggle and
experience; that was the key-note to her character and the explanation
of her actions. Yet that faith, when examined into, was nothing exotic;
no combination of mysticism and mummery, but one founded upon the daily
creed of the English and its fellow churches, and understood and applied
to the circumstances of a life which was as brief as it seemed to be
unfortunate. This was Morris's discovery, open and obvious enough, and
yet at first until he grew accustomed to it, a thing marvellous in
his eyes; one, moreover, in which he found comfort; since surely that
straight but simple path was such as his feet might follow.

And she loved him. Oh! how she had loved him. There could be no doubt;
there were her words written in that book, not hastily spoken beneath
the pressure of some sudden wind of feeling, but set down in black and
white, thought over, reasoned out, and recorded. And then their purport.
They were a paean of passion, but the dirge of its denial. They dwelt
upon the natural hopes of woman only to put them by.

"Yet how can I choke the truth and tread down the human heart within me?
Oh! the road that my naked feet must tread is full of