"Already," they
cried, "they have forgotten you living. You are to them one who is dead.
They will be afraid of you if they can see you. Oh, go not back! Be
content to wait,--to wait; it is only a little while. The life of man is
nothing; it appears for a little time, and then it vanishes away. And
when she comes here she will know,--or in a better place." They sighed as
they named the better place; though some smiled too, feeling perhaps
more near to it.

Lady Mary listened to them all, but she kept her eyes upon the face of
him who offered her this possibility. There passed through her mind a
hundred stories she had heard of those who had _gone back_. But not one
that spoke of them as welcome, as received with joy, as comforting those
they loved. Ah no! was it not rather a curse upon the house to which they
came? The rooms were shut up, the houses abandoned, where they were
supposed to appear. Those whom they had loved best feared and fled them.
They were a vulgar wonder,--a thing that the poorest laughed at, yet
feared. Poor, banished souls! it was because no one would listen to them
that they had to linger and wait, and come and go. She shivered, and in
spite of her longing and her repentance, a cold dread and horror took
possession of her. She looked round upon her companions for comfort, and
found none.

"Do not go," they said; "do not go. We have endured like you. We wait
till all things are made clear."

And another said, "All will be made clear. It is but for a time."

She turned from one to another, and back again to the first speaker,--he
who had authority.

He said, "It is very rarely successful; it retards the course of your
penitence. It is an indulgence, and it may bring harm and not good but if
the meaning is generous and just, permission will be given, and you may
go."

Then all the strength of her nature rose in her. She thought of the child
forsaken, and of the dark world round her, where she would find so few
friends; and of the home shut up in which she had lived her young and
pleasant life; and of the thoughts that must rise in her heart, as though
she were forsaken and abandoned of God and man. Then Lady Mary turned to
the man who had authority. She said, "If he whom I saw to-day will give
me his blessing, I will go--" and they all pressed round her, weeping and
kissing her hands.

"He will not refuse his blessing," they said; "but the way is terrible,
and you are still weak. How can you