every mile, and made the journey one long anxiety. I
could not know that Adam would go first, and so make my task doubly
hard."

"Come to me, Sylvia; let me keep you while I may. I will not be
violent; I will listen patiently, and through everything remember you."

He did remember her, so thoughtfully, so tenderly, that her little story
flowed on uninterrupted by sigh or sob; and while he held his grief in
check, the balm of submission comforted his sore heart. Sitting by him,
sustaining and sustained, she told the history of the last six months,
till just before the sending of the letter. She paused there a moment,
then hurried on, gradually losing the consciousness of present emotion
in the vivid memory of the past.

"You have no faith in dreams; I have; and to a dream I owe my sudden
awakening to the truth. Thank and respect it, for without its warning I
might have remained in ignorance of my state until it was too late to
find and bring you home."

"God bless the dream and keep the dreamer!"

"This was a strange and solemn vision; one to remember and to love for
its beautiful interpretation of the prophecy that used to awe and sadden
me, but never can again. I dreamed that the last day of the world had
come. I stood on a shadowy house-top in a shadowy city, and all around
me far as eye could reach thronged myriads of people, till the earth
seemed white with human faces. All were mute and motionless, as if fixed
in a trance of expectation, for none knew how the end would come. Utter
silence filled the world, and across the sky a vast curtain of the
blackest cloud was falling, blotting out face after face and leaving the
world a blank. In that universal gloom and stillness, far above me in
the heavens I saw the pale outlines of a word stretching from horizon to
horizon. Letter after letter came out full and clear, till all across
the sky, burning with a ruddy glory stronger than the sun, shone the
great word Amen. As the last letter reached its bright perfection, a
long waft of wind broke over me like a universal sigh of hope from human
hearts. For far away on the horizon's edge all saw a line of light that
widened as they looked, and through that rift, between the dark earth
and the darker sky, rolled in a softly flowing sea. Wave after wave came
on, so wide, so cool, so still. None trembled at their approach, none
shrunk from their embrace, but all turned toward that ocean with a
mighty rush, all faces glowed i