“Permission will not be refused,” he said, “for a worthy cause.”

Upon which the others all spoke together, entreating her.  “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 encounter all the misery of it?  He commands no one to try that dark and dreadful way.”

“I will try,” Lady Mary said.

V.