imly astray, by unheeding the checks
and the definite goals which the mind is ordained to prescribe to its
wanderings while here; the mind taking thoughts from the actual and
visible world, and the soul but vague glimpses and hints from the
instinct of its ultimate heritage. Each of you two seems to me as yet
incomplete, and your destinies yet uncompleted. Through the bonds of
the heart, through the trials of time, ye have both to consummate your
marriage. I do not--believe me--I do not say this in the fanciful wisdom
of allegory and type, save that, wherever deeply examined, allegory and
type run through all the most commonplace phases of outward and material
life. I hope, then, that she may yet be spared to you; hope it, not from
my skill as physician, but my inward belief as a Christian. To perfect
your own being and end, 'Ye will need one another!'"

I started--the very words that Lilian had heard in her vision!

"But," resumed Faber, "how can I presume to trace the numberless links
of effect up to the First Cause, far off--oh; far off--out of the scope
of my reason. I leave that to philosophers, who would laugh my meek hope
to scorn. Possibly, probably, where I, whose calling has been but to
save flesh from the worm, deem that the life of your Lilian is needed
yet, to develop and train your own convictions of soul, Heaven in its
wisdom may see that her death would instruct you far more than her life.
I have said, Be prepared for either,--wisdom through joy, or wisdom
through grief. Enough that, looking only through the mechanism by which
this moral world is impelled and improved, you know that cruelty is
impossible to wisdom. Even a man, or man's law, is never wise but when
merciful. But mercy has general conditions; and that which is mercy to
the myriads may seem hard to the one, and that which seems hard to the
one in the pang of a moment may be mercy when viewed by the eye that
looks on through eternity."

And from all this discourse--of which I now, at calm distance of time,
recall every word--my human, loving heart bore away for the moment but
this sentence, "Ye will need one another;" so that I cried out,
"Life, life, life! Is there no hope for her life? Have you no hope as
physician? I am a physician, too; I will see her. I will judge. I will
not be banished from my post."

"Judge, then, as physician, and let the responsibility rest with you. At
this moment, all convulsion, all struggle, has ceased; the f